The Federal Court of Canada has upheld a decision that classifies Nigeria’s two major political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as terrorist organisations, while rejecting the asylum claim of 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 argued that both the APC and PDP have been implicated in political violence, democratic subversion, and electoral bloodshed in Nigeria.
Court documents showed 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, openly disclosing his political history. However, Canadian immigration officials flagged his affiliations, citing intelligence reports linking both parties to electoral violence and politically motivated killings.
The IAD based much of its decision 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 the killing of opposition supporters. The tribunal concluded that the party’s leadership benefited from the violence and took no steps to stop it, meeting Canada’s legal definition of subversion under paragraph 34(1)(b.1) of the IRPA.
Justice Ngo ruled that mere membership in an organisation linked to terrorism or democratic subversion is sufficient to trigger inadmissibility under paragraph 34(1)(f) of the IRPA, without the need to prove personal involvement.
Egharevba’s argument that political violence was widespread across all Nigerian parties was dismissed, with the court stating that even flawed Nigerian elections constitute a democratic process under Canadian law and undermining them qualifies as subversion.
The decision effectively ends Egharevba’s asylum claim, paving the way for deportation proceedings.
