Nigerian Government reacts as Canadian Court Declared APC, PDP Terrorist Groups

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed as false and misleading reports claiming that a Canadian court declared the party a terrorist organisation.

In a statement issued on Friday, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, said the claims were “highly erroneous” and urged Nigerians to disregard them.

“Our attention has been drawn to media reports about a decision of a Canadian Court allegedly declaring APC as a terrorist organisation,” the statement read.

“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,” the party said in the statement.

Morka explained that the case in question — Douglas Egharevba v. Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness — involved an application for judicial review of a decision by Canada’s Immigration Appeal Division (IAD), which had found the applicant inadmissible under the country’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).

He clarified that in a judgment delivered on June 17, 2025, Justice Phuong T.V. Ngo dismissed the application because the court found that the applicant was a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and that the PDP was engaged in “acts of subversion” under paragraph 34(1)(b.1) of the IRPA.

Quoting from the judgment, Morka said, “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.”

According to him, the APC was only mentioned once in the entire 16-page decision — in the “Background” section — where the applicant claimed to have been a member of the PDP from 1999 to 2007 and the APC from December 2007 to 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, which didn’t exist at the time,” Morka noted.

He stressed that the court did not make any finding on terrorism against the APC, citing 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 analysing the IAD’s findings on terrorism.”

Morka described the reports suggesting otherwise as “patently erroneous, if not mischievous”, adding, “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.”

He further stated that any such declaration, even if made, would have “no extraterritorial applicability or significance” and would be “of absolute irrelevance” to the APC.

The party urged its members, supporters, and the public to disregard the claims, warning that they were designed to mislead and discredit the APC ahead of the 2027 general elections