Simon Ekpa, The Little Man In Finland

 By Achike Chude

There is a man in Finland. He is perhaps one of those economic migrant Nigerians who fled the country in search of greener pastures. No one knew about him, and no one really cared. Well, perhaps not everyone. He once won a 100-meter silver medal for Nigeria at the African Junior Athletic Championship in Cameroon in 2003.

*Ekpa 

But things have changed for him. He is now a lawyer. He is a member of the National Coalition Party of Finland and was a candidate in the 2022 Finnish county elections. Get this! He ran for election to become a government official to serve the interest of the Finnish people. In Nigeria, he says that elections must not hold in the South East.

Simon Ekpa loves the people of the South East so much that he deprives them of their right to engage in business and economic activities to maintain their general state of well-being by reiterating the Monday sit-at-home order in the region. He loves his people so much that he constantly threatens to soak the region with their blood if they defy his orders.

He has constantly shown his passion for his people by continually trying to create strife and enmity between them and the other ethnic groups they have always peacefully interacted with over the years.

Simon Ekpa abuses whole peoples on account of their ethnic cleavages, slanders them for their religious beliefs, and denigrates them for their ‘stupidity’.

And now, there is rumor that he has collected millions of dollars to cause greater pandemonium and crisis in the Southeast to dissuade the people he loves from making a decision that could help them politically in the immediate and  distant future. 

Simon Ekpa, a citizen of Finland, is ensconced in that faraway country, enjoying the benefits of a country that works while doing everything possible to ensure chaos and turbulence in Nigeria

It is why, for him, the killing of innocent people and security forces in Nigeria is fun and satiating. He revels in the spilling of innocent blood by unknown gunmen.

He is beside himself with glee when they have spectacular successes against the security forces and government institutions. He is giddy with excitement when security forces in turn commit atrocities against innocent civilians.

And we must not forget how frenzied he gets when his beloved ‘Fulani Herdsmen’ carry out their favourite past time of slaughter and mayhem in his region. He is overwhelmed with joy because it will serve as a basis and motivation to fleece concerned Nigerians and South Eastners in the diaspora of their hard earned monies in ‘defense’ of the Southeast

It is the crisis in the Southeast that makes people like Simon Ekpa rich. It is in the nature of such crises for people to profit from them. War is business, and strife is profitable. It is called organized chaos. But there are some things people do not know about Simon Ekpa.

He is a coward. He does not lead from the front and he despises his people from the Southeast. I suspect that he a miserable and unhappy man. Only knaves and base men, people who need psychological reset will do what he does. His pocket is more important than the misery of his people.

Give a man a laptop, android phone and unlimited data and he becomes a celebrity for good or for bad. 

But let no one be deceived that Simon Ekpa is in charge of any platoon, division, or garrison in the Southeast.  He is a general without troops. The internet has exaggerated his powers and his reach and given him attributes he does not have. He knows this but chooses to revel in the myth of his powers. It fetches him money, plenty of it.

But at the end of the day, he remains who and what he has always been and always will be – the little man in Finland.

And for such people, there is always a day of reckoning.

*Chude is a commentator on public issues