Surely, nobody expected Simon Ekpa to “win” the case against him ?
Cornelius Hamelberg
“A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces
Of yesterday's life”
Indeed, after the trial, here and there, especially among Biafra and pro-Biafra terrorism sympathisers, there are all kinds of attempts at ”damage control” and the picking up of “the broken pieces of yesterday's life“ with the aim of rearranging the pieces on Dr Oohay’s chessboard, to start the next round.
( Geopolitically, that used to be an Israeli argument, that it’s not a game of chess, that the game of life is not such that you lose a war, lose some territory (West Bank & Gaza) and get them back like before just to start another - the next round of war, lose that too and put the pieces back like on a chess board, to start another game.)
I don’t have a dog in the fight, but must point out that Basil Odilim’s headline ” Why Simon Ekpa lost” - now that the details are finally coming out, why he lost this open-and-shut case of financially supporting and along with his instigating via social media contributions to fanning the fire and flames of terrorism in mother Nigeria, is exaggerated even if the paranoia ( lawyers as “double-agents”) the speculations and abstract not concrete level of conspiracy theories he advances about the dynamics of the trial, are in themselves interesting.
The exaggeration begins with the idea that he “didn’t realize how closely the world was watching Simon Ekpa’s case. Calls came from the United States, China, and multiple Nigerian newspapers—all asking the same question: why did he lose?”
Really? The world was watching the trial closely? Who be dis Simon Ekpa sef, that the whole wide world was watching his trial closely and calls were coming from the United States, China, “and multiple Nigerian newspapers”?
No calls came from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Red Cross, the United Kingdom and the United Nations ?
Of course, there was a little about him on BBC Africa, but nothing in Frontpage Magazine and not even an honorary mention of the little fish in the World Terrorists Lists…
Relatively, one of the reasons for this lack of interest in the Ekpa case must have been that gathering more news headlines on the world stage was the trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs and we’re still awaiting the verdict and the sentencing that will wind up Jair Bolsonaro's trial in Brazil….
Foolhardy and naïve best describes Barrister Ekpa.”Prime Minister of the Biafra Republic Government in Exile (BRGIE)”? Foolhardy arrogance laced with delusions of grandeur
Well. he’s had some fun and his day in the sun, basking in some limelight…
People may speculate that the severity of the sentence was “ politically motivated” and they may even speculate that there was some outside interference that put pressure on Finland's judiciary to show no mercy. Imagine what the trial and the punishment would have been like if the criminal offences had been committed in Nigeria/ USA/ UK…
Of course if Simon Ekpa ( born fifteen years after Emeka Ojukwu capitulated on behalf of Biafra) if that Simon Ekpa and no other had equally been up to no good in Trump’s United States of America or if for example he had been giving the same financial, emotional and logistic support to HAMAS - or to Boko Haram, then the justices & judges there would have given him more than six years and in addition to that would have probably deported him to Guantanamo Bay or to El Salvador to serve his prison sentence .
It’s as clear as daylight that if the Finnish Court did not make a statutory example of Simon Ekpa (rimes with Emeka) then thousands of Simon Ekpas could arise in Finland, their area of jurisdiction ,to legally, financially and logistically start supporting terrorism in Nigeria in order to add to the chaos and the anarchy over there.
John Coltrane: After The Rain