PM Topic of Major Finnish Magazine
Mr. Prime Minister
Last fall, Finland elected a government for an African country that has not existed for half a century. It is managed by Simon Ekpa from Lahti. So far, he has caused a diplomatic row and a police investigation. Next, he plans to issue a declaration of independence.
he meeting starts at nine in the evening Biafra time. That's what's written on the invitation. CABINET EMERGENCY MEETING It's the first Monday in March.
Ministers and cabinet staff open remote connections. In Australia, Texas, Belgium, India, Espoo. Someone seems to be driving a car, another is sitting on a terrace. One's cell phone camera points at the ceiling lamp.
57 participants.
The chairman of the meeting, Prime Minister Simon Ekpa , is attached to the largest video image .
Your excellency , others are speaking. Your Highness.
Ekpa is dressed in a dark suit and tie. In the back, you can see a photocopier and decorative panels with animal motifs. The Prime Minister will lead the meeting from a shelter in Lahti. He's on the run from a kitchen renovation.
The media team appointed by the government starts the video. Sibelius ' Finlandia hymn starts playing. The participants stand up on their own. Take a hand to the heart. The words of the Biafra national anthem run at the bottom of the screen.
A minute of silence follows.
"We have to continue the fight until the very end," Ekpa says at the end.
Then to the point.
Biafra's government-in-refugee must urgently decide on the establishment of a police force in the former territory of Biafra. If an agreement is reached on the matter, the decision will be recorded in Act 06/2024. Already the sixth one enacted this year.
The army already exists, the defense forces, reportedly a hundred thousand soldiers strong.
A speech is reserved for all participants. Everyone supports the show with accelerating turns of phrase.
I support. I support. I support. I support one hundred percent. Wow, wow, wow!
Thank you for the presentation, Mr. Prime Minister!
The votes are recorded in a form, from where they are transferred to an excel table. A member of the media team shares the table for everyone to see. Live voting, the prime minister calls it. Open and transparent.
"Then screenshots of the result may not be sent anywhere until I have given the State of the Nation speech," says Ekpa. "You guys are always posting screenshots everywhere."
Next, it is unanimously decided to establish the Ministry of Justice and the judiciary.
The justice system will be similar to the one in Finland, the prime minister announces, and explains how it works: it is divided into administrative law and criminal law. He has personally stated, after living in Finland for years, that the system suits Biafra well.
Then there is the official ID to discuss. The Refugee Board will start granting such by the fall, that's the intention.
The security officer takes control and shares his own screen for the video call. He presents websites through which identity documents will be applied for in the future.
Again, everyone gets to comment, again everyone supports.
Fantastic job! Exceptional. A world-class work of art. New beginning!
In the bookmark bar of the security officer's browser, there is a link to the page buy fake ID online .
Simon Ekpa was supposed to become the world champion in athletics.
That's what he remembers thinking when he came to Finland for the first time in 2007. He was 22 years old and managed to finish second in the triple jump at the Nigerian championships.
He had been invited to train in Great Britain, then in Finland. Ekpa ran a hundred meters in 11.10 seconds at the Finnish Games and decided to stay.
Everything was different in Finland than at home. Everything just worked .
In Nigeria, on the other hand... It was a downright miracle that Nigeria was standing at all. Since it gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960, four entirely new constitutions had been written there.
There were military coups after another. An army mutiny, a ruler's execution, an attempt at a republic. A new military dictatorship.
Ekpa grew up in Ebonyi state in southeastern Nigeria, the former Biafra region. He was 14 years old when the Fourth Republic began in Nigeria. The country was declared a democracy. The first president was a general who led the Civil War, trying to balance a bloody history.
Ebonyi, like the other four states in south-eastern Nigeria, is inhabited by the Igbo. The Igbos are the third largest ethnic group in Nigeria. They make up fifteen percent of Nigeria's population, about 35 million. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa.
Sometimes there was talk of a tripod, a three-legged one: the Igbo in the east, the Yoruba in the west, and the Hausa and Fulani in the north.
All had their own customs, social structure, culture and history, but Great Britain cared little about ethnic boundaries when it united Nigeria into one nation during colonial rule. It made the groups compete with each other.
Natural wealth such as oil was in the territory of the Igbo.
Everyone who knew Ekpa when he was young knew the history of Biafra. The civil war wasn't talked about at school, and it still isn't. But parents and relatives had experienced the war.
How in 1967, the Christian Igbo declared Biafra independent from Nigeria, ruled by the Islamic north. How Biafra was blocked, how hundreds of thousands died of hunger, hundreds of thousands in persecutions and battles. Maybe millions.
Ekpa heard about massacres, disemboweled bodies on the roadsides. About how Biafra finally had to surrender. And how nothing came back to normal, even though reconstruction and integration were promised after the war. Everything was taken from the Igbos.
Ekpa settled in Lahti. He did military service, found a wife and had a child. Professional sports left when both knees failed.
In autumn 2012, Ekpa met Ben Zyskowicz at Lahti market . This was doing a municipal election campaign, and Ekpa stopped to chat. He no longer remembers from where, but somehow the encounter stuck in his mind. Got me excited.