The All Progressives Congress, APC, has refuted claims that a Canadian court declared the party a terrorist organisation.
In a statement issued on Friday, APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, clarified that the court made no pronouncement on terrorism in its ruling.
This followed reports from some media outlets on Thursday — excluding The PUNCH — alleging that the Canadian court had declared both the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as terrorist organisations.
APC urged its members, supporters, and Nigerians at large to disregard the reports, describing them as false and misleading.
The ruling party stated, *“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.
As reported, the declaration was allegedly made in the case of Douglas Egharevba and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, in which the applicant (Douglas Egharevba) sought judicial review of a decision by the Canadian Immigration Appeal Division [IAD] which determined that the applicant was inadmissible in Canada under its Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
In a decision in the matter dated June 17, 2025, Judge Phuong T.V. Ngo dismissed the application for judicial review on the ground that the applicant was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and that the PDP was an organisation engaged in acts of subversion pursuant to paragraph 34(1)(b.1) of the IRPA making him inadmissible in Canada.
In his analysis, the judge stated, ‘As such, applying the reasonableness standard of review, I cannot find the IAD’s conclusion that the elections in question constituted a democratic process or institution and that the PDP, its members and supporters engaged in subversive acts committed against the electoral process for the improper purpose of maintaining political power to be unreasonable.’”*
Morka stressed that claims of a Canadian court declaring the APC a terrorist organisation were blatantly false and, at best, deliberately misleading.
He explained, *“To be clear, the only reference to APC in the entire 16-paged decision was in the introductory Background, Paragraph 4, where the court referenced a Background Declaration Form in which the applicant stated that ‘he was a member of the People’s Democratic Party [PDP] of Nigeria from December 1999 until December 2007, and a member of All Progressives Congress [APC] party of Nigeria from December 2007 until May 2017.’
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.”*
The party added that any such decision would have been meaningless, lacking jurisdiction and extraterritorial legal effect.
The statement further read, “Clearly, reports that APC was declared as a terrorist organisation by the Canadian court in this matter is patently erroneous, if not mischievous.
“The court did not make such a declaration, and could not have done so as that would be an unjustifiable overreach, and a major breach of fair hearing, among other due process rights, given that APC was not a party to the proceedings.
Such a decision would also have been of absolute irrelevance as being made without jurisdiction, and of no extraterritorial applicability or significance.”
