THE ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have reacted to viral reports claiming that a judge of the Federal Court of Canada, Phuong Ngo, labelled them as ” terrorist organisations”.
The reports said the court upheld a ruling that classified APC and the PDP as terrorist organisations, while denying asylum to a Nigerian politician, Douglas Egharevba, over his decade-long affiliation with both parties.
However, details of the court’s ruling showed the judge declined to rule on the Canadian Immigration’s argument that the parties were terrorist organisations.
In his judgment delivered on June 17, 2025, Ngo dismissed Egharevba’s application for judicial review of his asylum request after the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) found him inadmissible under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
The Canadian Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness had reportedly argued that the APC and PDP were involved in political violence, subversion of democracy, and electoral bloodshed in Nigeria.
Egharevba was a member of the PDP from 1999 until he quit the party in 2007. He later joined the APC and also left the party 2017. Upon arriving in Canada, he disclosed his party affiliations.
The court ruled that his PDP membership made him inadmissible under Canadian law due to the party’s involvement in violence, intimidation, and other unlawful acts, which the court deemed to fit the definition of terrorism.
The court found both parties culpable but noted the PDP’s longer tenure in power meant it committed more offences. As a result, membership in these parties is grounds for inadmissibility in Canada, said the court.
The ICIR reports that the APC and the PDP reacted to the reports without first finding out what the court actually said.
In its response, the APC national secretary, Ajibola Basiru, described the presiding judge as an ‘ignoramus’.
“We are not party to the suit and the court has no jurisdiction to determine the status of a Nigerian recognised political party, not to talk of declaring it as a terrorist organisation,” Basiru stated.
He described the APC as a credible democratic political organisation and expressed disappointment that some Nigerians, whom he characterised as desperate and unpatriotic, were allowing the country’s name to be dragged into “unfavourable international commentary due to their self-initiated asylum applications.”
He further stated that the judgment in question appeared to be biased and was narrowly focused on determining the applicant’s eligibility for asylum.
“The APC is a credible democratic political organisation and does not seek legitimacy from a foreign bench and under a law that has no extraterritorial application,” Bashiru stated.
Similarly, the PDP described the ruling as “misinformed, biased, and lacking evidence.”
The PDP Deputy National Youth Leader, Timothy Osadolor, in an interview with Vanguard, said the ruling was unfounded and unjustified. He emphasised that Nigeria and Canada were both democracies and that such allegations should be handled with caution and precision.
He noted that people had the right to freedom of speech but should exercise it with circumspection.
He argued that there was no evidence to support the claim that either party is a terrorist organisation.
He suggested that Canadian authorities should focus on specific allegations against individuals rather than making sweeping accusations.
Hours after the parties reacted to the reports, the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, said the court never described the parties as terrorists.
“We wish to state categorically that the Canadian court did not declare APC as a terrorist organisation, contrary to highly erroneous media reports in circulation,” he wrote in a statement.
He added, “For the record, APC was not in existence as of 2007. The party was registered in 2013. The applicant’s claim of membership of APC as of 2007 is evidently false as he could not have been a member of APC that didn’t exist at the time.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we make bold to state that the court never made any determination on the question of terrorism in its decision. In the judge’s own words: ‘Having found that the IAD’s analysis on subversion was reasonable, this is sufficient to dismiss the application for review. I will therefore refrain from anaylysing the IAD’s findings on terrorism.”
NOTE: This report has been updated to reflect that the Canadian court never ruled that the APC and PDP were terrorist organisations.
The ICIR did not publish the initial report that erroneously described the parties as terrorists.
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A reporter with the ICIR
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