Something made me reach for my dictionary during the week. It was the outpouring of vituperations on a Canadian court which was said to have labelled two major political parties, the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as terrorist organisations.
The Canadian Federal Court, in a judgement delivered on June 17, 2025, upheld a decision by Canada’s Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) which denied asylum to Douglas Egharevba, a former member of both the PDP and APC, on the grounds that mere affiliation with parties linked to political violence and subversion, meets the threshold of inadmissibility under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). The court cited evidence of ballot-stuffing, voter intimidation, and politically motivated killings tied to the PDP’s conduct in the 2003 State elections and 2004 local polls.
Against the backdrop of the hullaballoo that trailed the court pronouncement, especially from very “patriotic” Nigerians, I delved into the dictionary in search of the real meaning of terrorism as I was already holding myself in doubt.
What I saw was no different from what I’d been seeing and thinking is the meaning of the word. The Oxford Dictionary, in simple terms, defined the word, “terrorist” as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” The Merrian-Webster Dictionary says it’s “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”
We were all witnesses to the brigandry that happened in 2023 in the name of election, where the APC loyalists in Lagos State in particular unleashed violence on hapless voters they felt were not in their support. The battered face of Jennifer Efidi still glimmers in the memory of anyone who is lucky not to have dementia. Jennifer had gone to vote, but got the beaten of her life because some APC thugs felt her vote was not for them and couldn’t actually be bought. Determined to pull the rug off the terrorists’ feet using the ballot paper, she rushed to a nearby medicare centre, got the wound treated and returned to vote, even with blood and bandage on her head.
Videos of hefty men who stormed the various polling stations warning those who had no intention of voting for APC to leave the scene filled the internet during the 2023 election. Scenes of ballot box snatching that Nollywood’s most action-packed movies couldn’t match were available for free. In Rivers State where the PDP won the governorship, poor National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members conducting the elections were harassed in public glare and were forced to either rig the elections in favour of APC presidential candidate or risk their lives. What else is terrorism?
EndSARS protests happened in this country when APC was in power. Uncountable number of the youths fell to the government bullets in Lagos State. Could that be a show of love and affection by a government?
No sooner had the news of the Canadian court judgement dropped than men in the school of political correctness jumped out to condemn the court. It is understandable that the two parties who bore the brunt of the tersely true ruling would react faster than all of other Nigerians. What is intriguing, however, is the tone and language of APC in its reaction.
The party dismissed the ruling as baseless, with its National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Bashiru, describing the presiding judge as “an ignoramus” and insisting the party was “a credible democratic political organization” that “does not seek legitimacy from a foreign bench and under a law that has no extra territorial application.”
The use of the word “ignoramus” on a judge operating in a country far more grounded in democracy and Western jurisprudence than Nigeria suggests and confirms the APC as what it was termed. Remember, the definition of terrorism includes intimidation. This reaction, typical of the party fond of using even more caustic languages on opponents, underscores the need to educate our politicians on the act of decorum.
Bashiru continued: “The court has no jurisdiction to determine the status of a Nigerian recognised political party not to talk of declaring it as a terrorist organization… The so-called judgment was obviously delivered from a jaundiced perspective and within the narrow confines of determining eligibility for asylum by an applicant.”
PDP showed more courtesy. It described the classification as “misinformed, biased, and lacking evidence,” calling for it to be dismissed outright. The PDP Deputy National Youth Leader, Timothy Osadolor, stated, “Nigeria and Canada are both democracies. And I’m sure those who make such statements enjoy their right to freedom of speech.
“But again, when having freedom of speech, one should be circumspect about unguarded and unnecessary statements. There’s nothing to show, there’s nothing on text to show that even the malfunctioning APC is a terrorist organisation or the PDP, which is a credible institution.”
On which bases should we actually begin to look down on courts in Canada? Of course, Canada did not make their courts what Nigeria has made its Judiciary today, a cauldron of injustice overwhelmed by some cash and carry judges.
For the damning remark to have come from a foreign court is enough humiliation on the essence of the nation Nigeria. However, wiser Nigerians swallowed the national pride to come out with more mature statements. Popular constitutional lawyer Femi Falana warned that the ruling should not be waved off, adding that it’s a wake-up call to confront electoral violence, impunity and criminalisation of dissent in Nigeria.
It makes no sense that someone suffering under the misrule of these politicians could brazenly come out in defence of the oppressors instead of putting feet flat on the ground to drive home the truth in the court’s statement.
Perhaps, the problem is that our imagery of terrorism has been limited to the gun-totting Boko Haram member and the AK-47 wielding herder who hide in the bush, cease lands, capture territories and forcefully convert the unwilling to Islam. The ones who live among us, who have perfected the act of state capture by unleashing their human lions on us, to force us to either vote for them or have our heads broken at best, or get eliminated outright, are not counted.
After capturing and living in the Government House, the terrorists in the cloak of politicians proceed to lavish our common purse according to their whims and caprices. Voices of dissent are silenced. They are not terrorists?
What the Canadian court did, which is the norm in their clime, was to tell us the raw truth. It is left for Nigerians who truly love their country to process this truth rather than live in denial of it under the pretext of patriotism. Patriotism should be to the nation, not to the individuals who occupy the positions of power. Neither should those who brought it to the fore be seen as demarketing Nigeria. The best catalyst to a good international image is proper conduct that has global acceptance. A con man can sell rotten tomato only once to a particular buyer.
If we are in search of those demarketing Nigeria, we should beam our touch lights at those who perform the acts of terrorism as defined above, in collaboration with the numerous sycophants that are afraid to speak truth to power simply for fear that their supply pipeline would either be ruptured or cut completely should they offend their imperial benefactors.
Dr. Odu can be reached through [email protected] or SMS 07016722929
