A Canadian Federal Court has branded Nigeria’s two popular political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as terrorist organisations.
Dockaysworld understands that the judgment is expected to lead to the deportation of former party member Douglas Egharevba.
The judgment, delivered on June 17, 2025, saw Justice Phuong Ngo uphold an earlier ruling by Canada’s Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) declaring Egharevba inadmissible under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) for belonging to groups tied to terrorism and the subversion of democracy.
Canadian authorities accused both the APC and PDP of entrenched involvement in political violence, election rigging, and systematic voter intimidation. The court said that senior party leaders not only profited from these acts but also failed to intervene, enabling the harm to persist for years.
Egharevba, who joined the PDP at its formation in 1999 and defected to the APC in 2007, maintained that his personal record was free of wrongdoing. However, the court ruled that party membership during violent and anti-democratic periods was enough to trigger inadmissibility, regardless of individual conduct.
The IAD’s findings centred on the PDP’s conduct during then-President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s tenure. Evidence showed that PDP loyalists engaged in ballot stuffing, snatching of ballot boxes, voter intimidation, and targeted killings of opposition supporters.
The APC was similarly cited in Canadian immigration records as benefiting from and perpetuating election-related violence, particularly during state-level contests, with reports of armed thuggery, coercion of voters, and attacks on political opponents.
Justice Ngo reaffirmed Canada’s broad interpretation of “membership” under paragraph 34(1)(f) of the IRPA, stating that affiliation with an organisation during periods of violent or subversive activity is sufficient grounds for inadmissibility, even without proof of personal participation.
Egharevba’s argument that such practices were endemic to all Nigerian political parties was dismissed. The court held that, however flawed, Nigerian elections are still recognised as democratic processes under Canadian law and undermining them for political gain constitutes subversion.
