Austrian NATO Committee Chair Appeals To Finnish President To Free Simon Ekpa, Calls Him ‘Mandela of Nigeria

Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn, the chairman of the Austrian Committee for NATO Enlargement, has publicly urged Finland’s President Alexander Stubb to release Biafran separatist figure Simon Ekpa, framing the plea as an Easter act of mercy.

He wrote on his official X handle:

“I call President @alexstubb. Free @simon_ekpa,” Fehlinger-Jahn wrote on X, tagging European Parliament President @RobertaMetsola. “Simon is Christian as you. Simon is the Mandela of Nigeria. Simon has deserved freedom. It is Easter, bless the merciful. Have mercy with Simon.”

Ekpa, a Finland-based pro-Biafra agitator, has been the subject of legal proceedings in Finland linked to his broadcasts and sit-at-home orders in Nigeria’s southeast.

Fehlinger-Jahn’s appeal leans on shared Christian identity and the Easter season to press for clemency, while likening Ekpa to Nelson Mandela—language likely to stir fresh debate over the limits of activism, diaspora influence, and judicial independe.nce.