Police in Finland arrest five suspects of separatist violence in southeastern Nigeria

HELSINKI – Police in Finland announced on Thursday that they have detained five suspects in connection with the death violence in south-eastern Nigeria and were seeking an extension of judicial detentions.

Police did not identify the suspects, saying only that a dual Finnish-Nigerian citizen born in the 1980s was being investigated.

However, Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian linked to the Biafran separatist movement, lives in Lahti, where the Päijät-Häme District Court will consider a request from the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation to hold the suspects in custody.

Ekpa is one of the leaders of the separatist group the Indigenous People of Biafra, which calls for the creation of an independent state of Biafra in Nigeria’s troubled southeastern region.

“Police suspect that the man (under investigation) stepped up his efforts from Finland in a way that led to violence against civilians and public authorities and other crimes in southeastern Nigeria,” Detective Chief Inspector Otto Hiltunen said in – a statement. statement.

The suspect “carried out this activity by campaigning, for example, on his social media channels,” Hiltunen said.

The secessionist campaign in southeastern Nigeria dates back to the 1960s, when the short-lived Republic of Biafra fought and lost a civil war from 1967 to 1970 to gain independence from the West African country. An estimated 1 million people died in the conflict, many from starvation.

Nigerian authorities have accused Ekpa of using social media to incite violence from his followers in Nigeria, many of them young.

Police in Finland said the investigation involved international cooperation.

Nigerian authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For many years, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with at least 210 million people, has been wracked by violence linked to the activities of armed extremist groups. Most recently, there have been social protests over a worsening cost of living crisis and alleged bad governance.