The Päijät-Häme District Court in Finland has sentenced Nigerian separatist activist Simon Ekpa to six years in prison after convicting him of terrorism-related crimes and tax fraud.
In its ruling delivered on Monday, the court declared Ekpa guilty of inciting terrorism and being actively involved in the operations of a terrorist organisation.
According to Finnish newspaper Yle, judges said Ekpa leveraged his “significant social media following” to escalate violence and unrest in Nigeria’s South-East region between August 2021 and November 2024.
The three-member judicial panel unanimously ruled that Ekpa was “an influential member of a militant separatist movement whose goal was to actualise the secession of a Biafran state from Nigeria.”
The court also revealed that Ekpa supplied separatist groups with “weapons, explosives, and ammunition” through his contacts in Nigeria, while further encouraging his followers on the social media platform X to “commit crimes” in the country.
A resident of Lahti and former local councillor, Ekpa allegedly carried out these activities from Finland, which gave the district court jurisdiction over the case.
Despite denying all charges during trial, he was also found guilty of aggravated tax fraud.
The verdict, however, is not yet final and can be appealed at a higher court.
Simon Ekpa, who first relocated to Finland in 2007 as an athlete, has been a controversial figure in Nigeria’s pro-Biafra movement and remains one of its most prominent voices abroad.
