Hours after his arrest in Finland, Simon Ekpa, self-acclaimed leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), allegedly started a live broadcast on his Twitter handle @simon_ekpa with a followership of over 70k people.
The broadcast generated reactions as to whether he was indeed arrested by the Finnish authorities.
It had thousands of Twitter users connecting and also commenting.
Verdict : FALSE
Verification
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Daily Trust subjected the broadcast to verification and found out that it was pre-recorded and the accompanying tweets were pre-recorded.
Further checks by Daily Trust showed that while the scroll messages from the broadcast showed it was recorded on 22 February 2022 while the caption on the broadcast was tagged “BIAFRA: Simon Ekpa is here to finish what he started 23.2.2023 Live and Direct”
Earlier on Thursday, a Finland-based newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, reported that Ekpa was arrested by police at his residence.
Daily Trust understands that he was released after hours of being grilled. He is to report back to the station on Friday.
However the emerging “live” broadcast caused social media stir with many Nigerians claiming he was not arrested.
Recently, Ekpa dared the federal government saying there will be no elections in the south-east zone of Nigeria.
Also, he had declared that people of the south-east region must observe sit-at-home every Monday to protest the detention of Kanu.
Conclusion: Daily Trust verification confirmed that the viral video broadcast by Mr. Ekpa is pre-recorded.
This Fact Check is produced in partnership with the Centre for Democracy and Development CDD
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