ENUGU Monday this week in the city of Enugu, Nigeria. The morning is beautiful and sunny, Enugu is green and rolling.
I have come here to find out what kind of impact an entrepreneur from Lahti has Simon Ekpa is here, in the territory of the former state of Biafra.
In an interview with , Simon Ekpa says that he leads the IPOB organization that is pushing for the independence of the Biafra region. For over a year and a half, he has been sharing weekly sit at home orders, effectively curfews, across five Nigerian states on social media platforms.
Ekpa says most of the more than 20 million people in southeastern Nigeria obey his orders. And of their own free will, because they want to support the independence of Biafra.
But there is a different kind of truth to be found in Enugu.
When Lahti speaks, Nigeria obeys
We leave the hotel for the city in my local guide’s car. The sit at home order imposed by Simon Ekpa is in force, as it has been on Mondays for over a year and a half. We defy the order.
– Remember, I can’t appear in your pictures, says the guide.
Fear becomes a travel companion.
Simon Ekpa is right about his influence: downtown Enugu, with a population of 800,000, is almost deserted. Shops, banks, markets, roadside shops, stalls and schools are closed, only individual cars and people pass on the street.
Enugu people obey when Simon Ekpa tells them to stay at home.
We stop at the New Market market area. Its gates are locked, only a couple of sales tables on the side of the street defy the curfew.
A random market vendor, 52 years old, was selected as a victim of violence here in December Joy Ikwe. He was killed by bullets from masked gunmen.
If you come out of your house, you will die
When Joy Ikwe died, just over a week had passed since Simon Ekpa had started a live broadcast on social media platforms at his home in Lahti.
Ekpa listed the five days for which he imposed a curfew in the former Biafra region. According to him, the ban was part of the election boycott for the upcoming elections.
Four days later, a video appeared online where Simon Ekpa was not speaking, and the video may not even be related to him.
But the menacing voice lists the exact same days as Ekpa in his own video, and the message is chilling: If you don’t follow the sit at home order, if you come out of your house, you will die.
Death in the market
The people of Enugu were already used to the frequent curfew every Monday. However, sitting at home for five days in a row was too much for most.
– Many people live here from hand to mouth. If one day there is no work and no earnings, there is also no food, says the entrepreneur, who remains anonymous.
The tenth of December was the second day of the curfew imposed by Simon Ekpa. Many people from Enugu took the risk and went to work. There were more people on the move than usual at the time of the stay-at-home order.
– Maybe it fooled the mother. He was usually very particular about not taking risks. If we are told to stay at home, then we stay, says Joy Ikwe’s daughter Chisom Ikwe.
Joy Ikwe woke up early and headed to the New Market in the early hours of Saturday morning.
There he bought vegetables from other market vendors and started making Abacha salad. Selling salad portions was the family’s only source of income, as Joy’s husband had temporarily lost his job as a bus driver.
He drove to the market around seven-thirty a group of masked gunmen (you switch to another service), who indiscriminately fire at market traders and customers. The situation is over in a moment, but when the gunmen gassed away from the place, two seriously wounded people, a man and a woman, were lying in the square.
The woman was Joy Ikwe.
He was rushed to Parklane Hospital by tricycle taxi. Husband Uchenna Ikwe got the call and rushed after it.
But too late, Joy’s life was over.
Fear makes you obey
The security situation in south-eastern Nigeria is bad. The police and army, armed groups, criminal gangs – all commit human rights violations in the region.
Joy Ikwe’s killers have so far not been brought to justice. According to one estimate (you switch to another service) In the first half of last year, 287 people were killed in southeastern Nigeria. Many of the cases remain unsolved.
Fear is what makes people obey orders from the far north and stay in their homes.
I had thought of doing a street poll in Enugu and asking what the locals think about Simon Ekpa and the stay-at-home orders he issued. The task turned out to be impossible. No one wanted to comment on Ekpa’s activities with their own name and face.
– You can’t trust anyone, not even your own friends. If you criticize Simon Ekpa and his orders, you are in danger, said the men sitting under the almond tree on the side of the street as if with one voice.
“Ekpa disgraces the veterans of the struggle for independence”
68 years old Tony Okeke receives us in his mansion-like house, with a row of old luxury cars in the yard. Okeke is an entrepreneur. He owns two hotels, two hospitals and real estate holdings across Nigeria.
Okeke was 13 years old when he joined the army of Biafra as a volunteer in 1967.
– At the train station in Enugu, I saw a train carrying the bodies of Igbo people killed in Northern Nigeria. I couldn’t help but join the fight for independence.
The inhabitants of the former Biafra, now southeastern Nigeria, are mainly of the Igbo tribe and Christians. In Enugu, it becomes clear that the Igbo, without exception, feel that their position in the Nigerian federation remains subservient.
But by what means should the cause of the Igbo be pursued? According to Tony Okeke, the path taken by Simon Ekpa is completely wrong.
– These curfews have had a devastating effect on Biafra’s economy. One working day is missing every week and violence is driving investment away from here. Simon Ekpa says he defends Biafra but attacks it against himself.
Tony Okeke criticizes Simon Ekpa in harsh words.
– Simon Ekpa dishonors the veterans of the Biafra war and the name of Biafra when he incites war. It was never the idea of Biafra, but the defense of our own people, says Okeke.
“Ekpa has no position in IPOB”
The sit at home campaign was started in the summer of 2021 by the IPOB movement, which is pushing for the independence of the former Biafra region. It claimed its imprisoned leader Nnamdi Kanu release and urged people to stay in their homes on two Mondays in protest.
IPOB ended its Sit at home project twice. But Simon Ekpa, who made programs on the movement’s online radio, Radio Biafra, disagreed. He adopted the idea of sit at home and at the same time also the name of IPOB.
In an interview with , Simon Ekpa announces that he is leading the activities of IPOB while Nnamdi Kanu is imprisoned.
The phone rang on Tuesday morning in my hotel room in Enugu. The call has been arranged through intermediaries and there is a male person on the line who is said to be the official spokesperson of IPOB Emma Powerful.
has not been able to verify the identity of the person on the other end of the line or the authenticity of his position. IPOB is considered a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government and its members are therefore not allowed to appear in public.
Emma Powerful says Simon Ekpa has nothing to do with IPOB.
– He is not a member of our movement. The curfews imposed by Ekpa are an attack on Biafrans and tarnish the reputation of IPOB. He should start his own organization and stop using the IPOB name.
Nigerian newspaper information (you will switch to another service) according to IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu sent a message from prison through his brother in December that he did not accept the curfew announced by Ekpa for December. The one during which Joy Ikwe was killed by gunmen’s bullets.
According to Emma Powerful, IPOB also does not accept the sit at home order announced by Simon Ekpa during the Nigerian elections. Instead, the movement encourages people to vote.
– We are not particularly on the side of elections, but we are not against them either. Go and vote, after that we will continue to work for an independent Biafra, says Emma Powerful.
Elections at stake
It is difficult to fact check the relationship between Simon Ekpa and South East Nigeria. Word is word for word in almost every passage. Is he the leader of IPOB or not, does he command hundreds or tens of thousands of gunmen, are his men responsible for acts of violence or not? The list of questions is long and difficult to understand.
But one thing is clear: Simon Ekpa does not want the five states of south-eastern Nigeria to hold successful elections on Saturday next week. Ekpa has ordered people to stay at home and boycott the elections. He declares war and is ready to create chaos to prevent the election.
The election boycott is difficult for many Igbos to understand, because for the first time in the history of independent Nigeria, a representative of the Igbo tribe has a chance to win the country’s presidential elections.
A former governor of Anambra who ran as a candidate for the small Labor Party Peter Obi leads the presidential polls. He is especially a favorite of young Nigerians and has been able to raise his support in places other than his actual support area in South-Eastern Nigeria.
And again the question: Why does Simon Ekpa want to destroy the elections in the former Biafra region and at the same time possibly prevent the Igbo representative from becoming president?
Many in Enugu believe that Peter Obi’s political rivals are funding Simon Ekpa’s anti-election activities for their own benefit. But no one has any proof of this.
It is logical, of course, that the failed elections in the former Biafra region would be a gift to the other two main candidates in the elections, Bola to Tinubu and For Atiku Abubakar.
“We vote at the risk of our lives”
The web around Simon Ekpa is tightening. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria invited (go to another service)on Tuesday to the Finnish ambassador to Nigeria Leena Pylvänäinen to the meeting and hopes that Finland will take quick and decisive actions to prevent Simon Ekpa’s anti-election activities.
– It seems that the situation is getting out of hand. Simon Ekpa’s actions threaten our elections and something must be done immediately to remedy the situation, said a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zubairu Dada meeting on Tuesday.
According to the Nigerian Business Day magazine, Zubairu Dada also presented a mild ultimatum to the Finnish authorities: if Finland does not take quick and strong action, Nigeria “will not take it lightly”.
The people I met in Enugu assured me that they would go to vote, despite the stay-at-home order issued by Simon Ekpa.
– We are tired of this insecurity. If we die, we die, but we go to vote, said the thirty-year-old from Enugu.
I won’t mention his name and gender, you can understand why.