The Federal Court of Canada has upheld a ruling classifying Nigeria’s two major political parties, the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as terrorist organisations.
The ruling was given while denying asylum to a former member, Douglas Egharevba, over his decade-long affiliation with both parties.
In a judgment delivered on June 17, 2025, Justice Phuong Ngo dismissed Egharevba’s application for judicial review after the Immigration Appeal Division, IAD, found him inadmissible under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRPA.
According to the Peoples Gazette, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness had argued that the APC and PDP were implicated in political violence, subversion of democracy and electoral bloodshed in Nigeria.
Court records showed that Egharevba was a PDP member from 1999 to 2007 before joining the APC, where he remained until 2017. He moved to Canada in September 2017 and disclosed his political history.
Canadian immigration authorities flagged his affiliations, citing intelligence reports linking both parties to electoral violence and politically motivated killings.
The IAD based its decision largely on the PDP’s conduct during the 2003 state elections and 2004 local government polls, when the party allegedly engaged in ballot stuffing, voter intimidation and killing of opposition supporters.
The tribunal found that the party leadership benefited from the violence and took no action to stop it, meeting Canada’s legal definition of subversion under paragraph 34(1)(b.1) of the IRPA.
Justice Ngo affirmed that mere membership in an organisation linked to terrorism or democratic subversion is enough to trigger inadmissibility under paragraph 34(1)(f) of the IRPA, even without proof of personal involvement.
Egharevba’s claim that political violence was widespread across all Nigerian parties was dismissed.
The court ruled that even flawed Nigerian elections constitute a democratic process under Canadian law and that undermining them qualifies as subversion.
The decision effectively ends Egharevba’s asylum claim, with deportation proceedings expected to follow.
