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”.
Sovereign states are not totally exempt from observing basic codes of decent conduct within their territories. This is a fact that is often lost to governments and the political elite in Africa. Fundamental human rights are universal in application. Dignity of life is paramount. Does Nigeria always acquit itself well towards its own people? Definitely not.
Canada does not claim to have the right to dictate to Nigeria how it behaves within its territories. It has the inalienable right and duty however, to protect itself from unwholesome direct or vicarious influence from abroad.
In any case, Canada has not judged Nigeria in this case by rules that it does not apply to itself. When it says APC and the PDP are complicit in “political violence, subversion of democracy and electoral bloodshed in Nigeria”, it is standing on values that guide its own conduct and behaviour. The legal definition of subversion of democracy in the books of the Canadian immigration refers to “a party leadership (that) benefitted from violence and took no action to stop it”. What is APC and PDP contesting here?
Tough luck for Egharevba. He found himself subjected to strict moral codes that do not apply where he was coming from. As the Canadian law has it, unfortunately, “mere membership in an organization linked to terrorism or democratic subversion (as defined) is enough to trigger inadmissibility” into Canada. After the by-elections of Saturday, August 16 2025, Canada may have cause to explore ways of expanding their definition of subversion of democracy.
In Egharevba’s, case Canada picked issue only with “political violence, subversion of democracy and electoral bloodshed in Nigeria”. They did not extend their disapproval to sundry atrocities committed against Nigerians by the Nigerian state. These are all waiting to be held up as evidence against the governments and its various officials another day. It is only a matter of time.
Only last week, on August 14 2025, Amnesty International released a damning report it titled A decade of Impunity: Atrocities and Unlawful killings in South East Nigeria. The 128-page document which has not received the attention it deserves, denounces Nigeria’s crime against its own people.
According to this troubling report, no fewer than 1,844 people were killed in the South East within two and a half years from January 2021 – June 2023. The gory statistics averaged 61 deaths per month or two deaths per day. In Imo State alone, the report said “Gunmen killed over 400 people between 2019 – 2021…. hundreds of people were arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared”
Over and above the colossal figure of 1,844 killings it mentioned, the report added a further distressing dimension that “No one knows exactly the number of people killed in the Southeast since August 2015.Many people have been declared missing or forcibly disappeared.” To imagine that these atrocities worse than war crimes, were committed in a country that was not at war. There certainly was no known war in the Southeast.
The period of the reported atrocities of wanton killings in the Southeast coincided with the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari. For the records, as at the time Buhari assumed the presidency, the Southeast was the safest and most peaceful zone in the country.
Amnesty International’s report noted that “The Nigerian authorities’ brutal clampdown on pro-Biafra protests from August 2015 plunged the South East region into an endless cycle of bloodshed, which has created a climate of fear and left many communities vulnerable.” What followed was an orgy of assassinations, arson and attacks on highways. None of these was ever resolved.
The report did not mince words in pointing at the accused perpetrated of the crimes. In its words, “During military operations in the South-East, Nigerian security agencies, including the military and the police, committed unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and destruction of property”.
The said military operations were, as it often were, targeted expeditions against phantom insurgents, contrived by security agencies in line with Buhari’s desire to bring war to the Southeast. This was the period when every crime in the Southeast, from arson to jail break was promptly pinned on Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and the Eastern Security Network (ESN) without any modicum of investigation. Killing in the Southeast was fair game.
Not surprisingly, Amnesty International noted that “despite the scale of the atrocities against the people (in the Southeast), justice and adequate reparation have eluded victims of the violence”.
In civilized societies, Buhari’s inglorious exit, both from government and from this realm would have been followed with an open and thorough investigation, instituted by the government to establish the extent of the atrocities against citizens of the country by the military and other agencies of the state, in that troubled period. Such investigation will be the least expression of responsibility to the people by their government. Such a show of governmental responsibility is yet to happen.
So far, only the Nigeria Police Force has reacted to the Amnesty International report. An official statement by the Police said it is reviewing the Amnesty Report, after which it will formally respond. The reaction of the military and the Department of State Security Services is being awaited. They owe the world a response. Their obligation is to country, not to ephemeral principalities.
It is not difficult to understand why Nigeria will continue to be disparaged abroad. The misdeeds of its governments and agencies of the state can be very repugnant.
