Finnish prosecutors on Friday said they had charged a man with inciting terrorism online, who a media report identified as Nigerian separatist leader Simon Ekpa.

According to a statement by Finland’s National Prosecution Authority, it had charged a Finnish individual in a case involving suspected public incitement to commit crimes with terrorist intent and participation in the activities of a terrorist group.

The statement added that the alleged crimes had been committed in the city of Lahti between 2021 and 2024 and were related to the suspect’s efforts to establish Nigeria’s Biafra region as an independent state.

The prosecution authority did not name the accused; however, Finnish public broadcaster YLE, which claims to lead the Biafra Republic’s government in exile.

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New Telegraph recalls that Ekpa who claims to lead the Biafra Republic’s government in exile, was detained in November.

According to the prosecution authority, the accused remained in custody and denied the charges.

Ekpa is known as a self-proclaimed leader of a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which is pushing for the independence of Nigeria’s southeast, where a bloody civil war was fought in the late 1960s.

The dual Finnish-Nigerian national has also been a local representative for Finland’s conservative National Coalition Party in the city of Lahti, north of Helsinki, where he has served on a public transport committee.