Claim that Finland released Nigerian separatist from detention is false

The Finnish government jailed Nigerian self-proclaimed separatist leader Simon Ekpa in November 2024 after he was arrested for suspected terrorist activities and incitement of violence in Nigeria. Since then, scores of accounts on Facebook have claimed Ekpa has been released from detention. But this is false; the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation told AFP Fact Check that Ekpa is still in custody awaiting trial. Prosecutors have until May 2025 to formalise charges against him.

“Breaking News: Simon Ekpa Released from Detention in Finland, Awarded $100,000 in Compensation,” reads the heading of a Facebook post published on November 15, 2024.

Shared more than 200 times, the post 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 post was published on a page called “Igbo Times Magazine” which has a history of sharing content critical of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and his party All Progressives Congress (APC).

The page has 41,000 followers and has been the subject of past debunks by AFP Fact Check (here, here, here, and here).

Igbo Times Magazine also operates a blog through which it regularly spreads misinformation.

Other accounts on Facebook also shared the claim (here, here and here).

However, the posts are false.

Still behind bars

Ekpa, a dual Finnish-Nigerian national, is a self-proclaimed leader of a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group that is pushing for the independence of Nigeria’s southeast, where a bloody civil war was fought in the late 1960s.

On November 21, 2024, Finnish authorities detained Ekpa on suspicion of terrorism activities for his online independence campaign that allegedly incited violence against civilians (archived here).

Ekpa — who claims to lead the nominal Biafra Republic’s government in exile — was remanded in custody on suspicion of “public exhortation to an offence committed with a terrorist intent,” the Paijat-Hame District Court told AFP Fact Check.

Since his arrest, there have been no reports about him being released.

In a response to an AFP Fact Check query about Ekpa’s status, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said the secessionist leader is still in custody.

“The investigation is still ongoing and will continue next year. The suspect is still in custody,” wrote NBI’s spokeswoman Tessa Sarkka.

In another email seeking clarification on when Ekpa’s trial would commence, NBI’s senior detective Mikko Laaksonen said the deadline to indict the Nigerian secessionist is May 2025.

“The beginning of court proceedings cannot yet be estimated. Most likely in 2025. The deadline for prosecution to press charges is in May 2025 but it is also possible to postpone this if the investigation is delayed for some reason,” Laaksonen wrote.