By Ben David
As I pen this, a Nigerian, Henry Okah, has spent 12 years of his life in Ebongweni Correctional Centre, in South Africa. All things being equal, Okah has another 12 years of his life to spend, perhaps in the same prison, before the South African government will decide on whether or not to set him free.
It is important to note that Okah didn’t commit any crime on South African soil in order to end up in their jail. His journey to prison began in Nigeria where, as a self-styled “freedom fighter” and leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), he felt that the Nigerian government had unfairly treated his kinsmen in the Niger Delta, where the bulk of the country’s wealth comes from.
Founded in 2006, MEND had taken responsibility for attacks on oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, often resorting to sabotage, guerilla warfare or kidnapping of foreign oil workers. Using the media to great advantage, MEND at a point grabbed global headlines when it claimed it nominated a former US President, Jimmy Carter, as its mediator with the Nigerian government.
In February 2008, he was arrested in Angola and deported to Nigeria where he was charged with 62 counts of treason, terrorism, illegal possession of firearms and arms trafficking.
Okah’s trial began in April 2008. A month later, on May 26, 2008, MEND attacked a Shell pipeline and claimed to have killed 11 Nigerian soldiers promising to carry put more attacks. The attack hiked global oil prices by $1 per barrel.
A year later, the then President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua announced his amnesty programme which Okah claimed he embraced. MEND spokesman claimed that it would lay down arms should Okah be set free.
On July 13, 2009, Justice Mohammed Liman of the federal high court announced that Okah was released, telling him in person: “Having reviewed what the attorney general said, you have become a free man at this moment.”
However, about 17 months after Okah was set free, MEND struck.
Also Read: Nnamdi Kanu has case to answer, says Abuja Court
At Nigeria’s Independence Day on October 1, 2010, whilst the then President Goodluck Jonathan, was addressing the world at Eagle Square, Abuja, three cars packed with explosives detonated. The explosion killed 12 people and injured 36. Several vehicles parked at the Eagle Square car park were destroyed.
A day after the Eagle Square bombing, Okah was arrested in Johannesburg, South Africa. He told the South African authorities that he knew nothing of the attacks. Throughout the trial, Okah maintained his innocence.
Less than 27 months after Okah’s arrest, he was, on Monday, January 21, 2013, convicted of 13 charges of terrorism, including bombings that killed 12 people in Abuja on October 1, 2010. In March of the same year, Henry Okah’s younger, Charles aka Gbomo Jomo, was arrested in Nigeria. On 8 March 2018, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja found Charles Okah and his accomplice, Obi Nwabueze guilty on five of the eight counts of terrorism charges. Both men are currently serving live imprisonment on Maiduguri maximum security prison.
If Charles Okah is serving a 24- year jail sentence in the southern Hemisphere country of South Africa, something related played out in the northern hemisphere country called Finland.
Last month, a court in the Nordic country sentenced Simon Njoku Ekpo to six years in prison on terrorism-related charges.
In 2022, while in Finland, Ekpa declared the activation of the Biafra Government In Exile (BGIE), and in 2023 declared himself the leader or Prime Minister of the Biafra Republic Government in Exile (BGIE). It is important to note that, two years after Ekpa declared himself BGIE leader, Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), arrested him on accusations of terrorist activities in Nigeria, nearly 8500 kilometres away.
Ekpa was remanded into custody by the District Court of Päijät-Häme on suspicion of public incitement to commit a crime with terrorist intent. He was suspected of committing the crime between 23 August 2021, and 18 November 2024. According to the report, the NBI has frozen his assets, those of his accomplices, and the assets of companies associated with him. Ekpa had been previously arrested and detained in Finland in 2023 on suspicion of illegal fundraising. He was released shortly after.
On 3rd December 2024, hundreds of Biafrans, who consider Ekpa their Prime Minister, gathered in Lahti to protest against the arrest. His supporters in Nigeria declared a two-day sit-at-home to protest his trial in Finland. The protests didn’t stop Ekpa’s sentencing.
I’ve taken the pains to talk about the sentencing in foreign lands of two Nigerians who caused us so many pains, MEND leader, Henry Okah, and his BGIE counterpart, Simon Ekpa.
Even since the 9/11 attacks, the world has become serious when issues of terrorism are discussed. Sadly, here in Nigeria, we still treat terrorism with kid gloves.
This perhaps explains why people like serial presidential candidate and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, would from the comfort of his home lend support to the fiendish call by another serial presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, that IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, be set free.
Sowore had recently launched a campaign to lead a protest calling for the immediate release of Kanu. He’d put several South East leaders on the spot, calling them out to support his self-serving campaign.
Last week, he visited former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“President Jonathan agreed that there is an urgent and compelling need to address this matter decisively and justly,” Sowore said in a statement posted on his Facebook page. He added that Jonathan had assured him he would discuss the issue with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu soon.
“With this, former President Jonathan joins a growing list of Nigerians who have called for justice in Nnamdi Kanu’s case,” Sowore said.
“That list already includes former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Femi Falana (SAN), Senator Shehu Sani and many others across political and regional divides,” he wrote.
What Sowore forgot was that it was during the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan that the Nigerian government provided all the required legal assistance, enabling South Africa to convict Henry Okah.
Perhaps, Sowore also forgot that it was during Atiku’s vice presidency that people like Okah began blowing up oil installations. What Atiku did as deputy to President Olusegun Obasanjo to douse the agitations in the Niger Delta remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, last week, the same Atiku gleefully declared, “I , therefore, lend my voice in full support of the campaign led by @YeleSowore for his immediate release or due prosecution. We fail as patriots if we allow Kanu’s case to fester as yet another wound this nation refuses to heal.”
It is perhaps pertinent to, at this juncture, ask how countries like South Africa and Finland that helped us jail terrorists like Henry Okah and Simon Ekpa would see Nigeria.
Kanu’s trial had dragged on for several years until Oluwatosin Ajayi was appointed to head the Department of State Services (DSS). No sooner had Ajayi taken over at the DSS than he expressed a commitment to disposing of all the cases he inherited.
In fairness to the new DSS boss, he restarted all the cases he inherited, including Kanu’s.
Another trial the DSS restarted is that of leader of al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group Ansaru, Khalid al-Barnawi. So dreaded was al-Barnawi that the US placed a $5m bounty on his head. It has been nearly ten years since al-Barnawi’s arrest, but he’s yet to be convicted.
Charity, they say, begins at home. Former Vice President Atiku has indicated his willingness to lead the protest against Kanu’s continued trial. Meanwhile, his “brother” al-Barnawi has been in detention and on trial since 2016. Atiku hasn’t called for Al-Barnawi’s release. Also, former VP Atiku hasn’t called for the speedy trial of Abba Mahmuda, who in DSS custody. The aforementioned are his immediate “constituents.”
Doesn’t it smack of hypocrisy that our former VP is more interested in Nnamdi Kanu than in his “brothers?”
It took countries like South Africa and Finland few months to conclude the trials of Henry Okah and Simon Ekpa.
Rather than call for protests, Sowore and Atiku who, by the way, failed to show up at the Finland protests in support of Simon Ekpa, should channel their energies to calling on the judiciary to speed up Kanu’s trial. In calling for the speeding up of Kanu’s trial, Atiku and Sowore shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that most of the delays in the course of he trial have been caused by the Biafran leader’s legal team. Not the courts.
Atiku and Sowore should learn how not to make Nigeria a laughing stock!
Ben David is an Abuja-based blogger and public affairs analyst
