It is not often that a gavel struck in a faraway land reverberates with the sound of thunder in Abuja. Yet with one ruling, the Canadian Federal Court has shaken Nigeria’s democratic house to its foundations, placing Nigeria’s democracy in the dock and declaring its political titans – the ruling All-Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – custodians of power since 1999 as indistinguishable from terrorist organizations. In the eyes of Canada, the ruling parties of Africa’s largest democracy are less assemblies of statesmen than syndicates of violence. It is, to borrow Chinua Achebe’s words, the story of a house that has refused to stand, because those entrusted with its pillars have chosen to feed upon its rafters.
The case, Egharevba v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 2025), was ostensibly about one man, a politician fleeing his homeland in search of asylum. But in upholding the decision that his very membership in APC and PDP renders him inadmissible under Canadian law, the court cast a shadow not just upon a man, but upon the entire architecture of Nigeria’s politics. What was framed in the cold lexicon of Canadian statute resonates here with searing symbolism: that Nigeria’s two great political machines, custodians of power since 1999, are seen abroad not as vehicles of democracy but as syndicates of fear.
A History Written in Blood
Since 1999, Nigeria’s elections have often been less about ballots than about blood. From Rivers State to Kano, from Lagos to Benue, each election cycle leaves behind the same grim tally: ballot boxes stolen, voters beaten, opposition supporters assassinated. Justice Ngo’s judgment catalogued these realities in blunt detail:
• Ballot snatching and vote rigging as standard operating procedure.
• Thuggery and political assassinations as tools of power.
• Impunity for perpetrators, year after year.
For many Nigerians, none of this was news. What was shocking was to see it translated into legal language abroad, reframed not as “political malpractice” but as conduct indistinguishable from terrorism.
Nigerian democracy has long been a river muddied with blood.
• In 2007, an election described by observers as “the worst in Nigeria’s history” was marred by ballot-box theft, gunfire, and the deaths of hundreds.
• In 2011, post-election violence claimed more than 800 lives across the North, with churches torched, mosques attacked, and homes reduced to ash.
• In 2019, gangs of machete-wielding thugs, hired by politicians, prowled polling stations, chasing away voters with impunity.
• Even in 2023, despite new technology and promises of reform, the stories repeated: intimidation at polling units, votes stolen in broad daylight, citizens brutalized for daring to choose.
This is the inheritance Canada scrutinized. And in the eyes of its jurists, the sum of these atrocities resembles not democracy, but a theatre of terror masquerading as politics. What Canada’s court has done is not invent slander, but reframe Nigeria’s truth in the cold, pitiless vocabulary of law. Where Nigerians sigh “election violence,” Canada calls it by another name: terrorism.
Sovereignty Wounded, Truth Exposed
Abuja has cried foul, insisting that Canada’s ruling is “a grave misrepresentation.” PDP, with predictable indignation, has declared it “biased and misinformed.” APC hides behind semantics, reminding anyone who will listen that no formal ban has been placed on their operations. Yet beneath the sound and fury lies an unspoken confession. For every Nigerian knows that elections here are more often battles than ballots, more often survival than choice. In a land where democracy has become a game of thrones, played with machetes and gunfire, can it truly be called democracy at all?
Beneath these protestations lies an unspoken shame. For is it not true that every Nigerian family knows the shadow of electoral violence? Is it not true that political campaigns too often feel like preparations for war, where “structures” mean not ideas but battalions of rented muscle? The court’s ruling may overreach, but its sting lies in recognition: the violence Nigerians endure every four years is not mere “irregularity.” It is systemic, predictable, orchestrated—and thus indistinguishable, in form if not in name, from terror. As Soyinka once warned, “the man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.” And what greater tyranny exists than a politics that sends its youth to early graves every four years in the name of power?
The International Repercussions
The ruling has no legal weight in Nigeria, yet its implications are profound.
• Diplomatic strain with Ottawa, as sovereignty is pitted against morality and Abuja frames the judgment as neocolonial overreach.
• Immigration perils for ordinary Nigerians affiliated with APC or PDP, who may find themselves, liable to suspicion merely for belonging to the nation’s dominant parties.
• A dangerous precedent, one that courts in London or Washington might quietly adopt, guided by the same logic.
Human rights lawyer Femi Falana, SAN has warned that London, Washington, or Brussels might not be far behind. And if so, the reputational cost to Nigeria will be incalculable.
A Mirror Too Clear to Ignore
Let us not be deceived. This is not a Canadian mischief. It is a mirror. A mirror so clear, so merciless, that Nigerians may wish to smash it rather than confront its reflection. For what it shows is a democracy hollowed out by impunity, where political “structures” are code for gangs of thugs, where ideology is an afterthought, and where victory is purchased not with persuasion but with blood. The ruling, however harsh, is not mere interference. It is a mirror that reflects an uncomfortable truth Nigerians whisper but seldom say aloud: that the so-called parties of the Fourth Republic are less democratic institutions than political cartels, built not on ideology but on violence, patronage, and impunity.
How else can one explain the near-total absence of prosecutions for electoral killings? How else can one justify a system where ballot snatching is shrugged off as “part of the game”? In truth, the Canadian court has simply rebranded what Nigerians already know: politics here kills. As the Book of Hosea reminds us: “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Nigeria has sown impunity for decades; is it any surprise that the harvest is condemnation, even from abroad?
The Lesson We Dare Not Dismiss
Yes, Nigeria is sovereign and sovereignty is sacred. Yes, foreign courts should tread carefully in passing judgment on other nations. But to dismiss this verdict as ignorance or bias would be a tragic mistake. For sovereignty without self-respect is hollow. And democracy without justice is a charade., but sovereignty without justice is but a hollow boast. The lesson of Canada’s ruling is not to rail against foreign interference, but to finally confront the rot within. If Nigeria’s leaders wish to wash off the stain of this judgment, they must do more than summon indignation. They must:
• Pass laws that make electoral violence a crime with real consequences.
• Prosecute not only the cutlass-bearing street thug, but the powerful men who hire and pay him.
• Protect voters, so that the simple act of casting a ballot is no longer a wager with death.
• Demand that APC, PDP, and all parties purge themselves of violence and rediscover the meaning of politics as service, not war.
Conclusion: A Bitter Gift
Yes, the ruling is an insult. Yes, it bruises national pride. But it is also a gift, bitter though it may taste. It tells Nigerians what they already know but too often endure in silence: that their politics is not yet free, their democracy not yet whole, their leaders not yet innocent. But perhaps, like all bitter medicines, it is meant to heal. For in the clear eyes of a distant court, Nigerians are reminded of what they already know: that their politics too often bleeds, and that their democracy, as Achebe once lamented of the nation itself, is “a child too often flogged, and yet still expected to run.”
If Nigeria does not change course, other courts will follow, and the nation’s leaders will find themselves exiles in a moral wilderness, branded not as democrats but as merchants of fear. Until ballots are cast without bloodshed, until elections no longer resemble war, Nigeria will remain vulnerable to the world’s scorn. For in the end, when democracy wears the mask of terror, the world will not call it democracy. It will call it by its true name.
