Nigeria’s burden of misdeeds
Andy Ezeani,Tuesday,August 19,2025
Did the Canadian court, presided over by Justice Phuong Ngo, overreach itself in an immigration matter when it affirmed the classification of Nigeria’s two leading political parties as terrorist organisations? Maybe.
In the course of hearing an appeal by a Nigerian, Douglas Egharevba, for review of the refusal of his application for asylum in Canada by the immigration commission, the court upheld the basis for the earlier rejection of the application.
Of his own volition in his documentation, Egharevba had informed the Canadian authorities that he belonged, at different times, to All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), two of Nigeria’s major political parties. Those affiliations turned out to carry seeds of reproach.
A state functionary with responsibility to access Egharevba’s profile, summarily indicted APC and PDP as terrorist organisations. It is not exactly clear what value Egharevba thought affiliation to APC and PDP would add to his profile in any sane clime. That however, is not of importance here.
Between them, APC and PDP have governed Nigeria for the last quarter of a century. The two parties are largely constituted by the same people, anyway. They merely alter their sitting arrangement. Within Nigeria, the behemoths in APC at the moment, and in PDP at some point, may consider themselves the ultimate potentates, strutting about with scant care about how their hapless compatriots feel.
Before the outside world however, the profile of Nigeria’s political class is obviously more dross rather than gloss. Egharevba’s case only prompted Canada to return its verdict; Nigeria’s two leading political parties are complicit in “political violence, subversion of democracy and electoral bloodshed in Nigeria”.
