The Finnish government jailed Nigerian self-styled separatist leader Simon Ekpa in November 2024 after he was arrested for suspected terrorist activities and incitement to violence in Nigeria. Since then, dozens of accounts on Facebook have claimed that Ekpa has been released from detention. But this is incorrect; the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation told AFP Fact Check that Ekpa remains in custody awaiting trial. Prosecutors have until May 2025 to formalize charges against him.
“Breaking News: Simon Ekpa released from detention in Finland, gets $100,000 compensation,” reads the headline of a Facebook post published on November 15, 2024.
Screenshot of the fake message, taken on December 20, 2024
The post was shared more than 200 times and claims that a Finnish court released Ekpa due to the Nigerian government’s inability “to present evidence in court to substantiate their allegations against him.”
The claim also stated that Ekpa was awarded $100,000 in compensation for “unwarranted arrest and invasion of his privacy.”
The message was published on a page called “Igbo Times Magazine”, which has a history of sharing critical content about Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and his party All Progressives Congress (APC).
The page has 41,000 followers and has been the subject of previous debunkings by AFP Fact Check (here, here, here and here).
Igbo Times Magazine also runs a blog through which it regularly spreads misinformation.
Other accounts on Facebook also shared the claim (here, here and here).
However, the reports are false.
Still behind bars
Ekpa, who is a Finnish-Nigerian national, is a self-proclaimed leader of a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group pushing for the independence of southeastern Nigeria, where a bloody civil war was fought late last year. 1960s.
On November 21, 2024, Finnish authorities arrested Ekpa on suspicion of terrorist activities for his online independence campaign that allegedly incited violence against civilians (archived here).
Ekpa – who claims to lead the government of the nominal Biafra Republic in exile – was taken into custody on suspicion of “public incitement to a crime committed with terrorist intent”, the Paijat-Hame court told AFP Fact Check.
Since his arrest, there have been no reports of his release.
Responding to an AFP Fact Check question about Ekpa’s status, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said the secessionist leader remains in custody.
“The investigation is still ongoing and will continue next year. The suspect remains in custody,” NBI spokeswoman Tessa Sarkka wrote.
In another email seeking clarification on when Ekpa’s trial would begin, NBI’s senior detective Mikko Laaksonen said the deadline to charge the Nigerian secessionist is May 2025.
“The start of the legal proceedings cannot yet be estimated. Most likely [they will start] in 2025. The deadline for [the] The prosecution for filing charges will take place in May 2025, but it is also possible to postpone this if the investigation is delayed for some reason,” Laaksonen wrote.
