Simon Ekpa, the self-styled “Prime Minister of the Biafra Government in Exile,” has firmly refused to comply with the instruction from the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, to stop the Monday sit-at-home order in the southeastern region of Nigeria.
Speaking on the 90MinutesAfrica program hosted by Rudolf Okonkwo on Tuesday, the Finland-based pro-Biafra activist as reported by Sahara Reporters declared, “I won’t listen to Nnamdi Kanu’s instructions to end sit-at-home. I will only listen to him not just when he becomes a freeman, but he has to come to Finland to tell me face to face.”
In July 2023, Nnamdi Kanu had instructed Simon Ekpa through a letter, read to the media by his special counsel Aloy Ejimakor, to “desist from calling any sit-at-home forthwith.”
Kanu emphasized that anyone enforcing the sit-at-home order in the southeast no longer represented him or IPOB’s interests.
However, Ekpa has remained defiant, stating that his only condition for compliance is for Kanu to personally meet him in Finland.
“Even if they bring him out today and he stays in Nigeria and says, ‘Simon Ekpa, stop,’ I’m not going to stop,” he said.
Ekpa justified the sit-at-home exercise as a critical tool for advancing the quest for Biafra’s independence. He claimed it has effectively “crushed Nigeria’s economy,” delegitimized its government in Biafra land, and proven that people no longer heed Nigerian authorities.
“We are using four different mechanisms to pursue the freedom of Biafra,” Ekpa explained. “The political, diplomatic, self-defense or arms struggle, and the civil disobedience approach. These are the four approaches we are using to delegitimize and fight Nigeria, and they are working perfectly.”
While critics argue that the sit-at-home policy disrupts the lives of traders, students, and residents in the region, Ekpa dismissed these concerns, labeling the hardships as a necessary sacrifice.
“The traders have a better business ahead of them, and the students will have better schools to attend in the future,” he asserted. “What we are doing is a price they have to pay for freedom. Freedom does not come easy. We are going to bring an alternative that will work for them. So they have to pay the price of not going to school if they have to.”
Ekpa’s defiance and justification continue to stir controversy, highlighting the divide within the Biafra movement and its impact on the southeastern region of Nigeria.
