By Bolaji O. Akinyemi
On June 17, 2025, far from Abuja, a Federal Court in Ontario, Canada, delivered a ruling that should shake every Nigerian who still believes in democracy. The case was not about a coup, an insurgency, or a terrorist cell in the usual sense. It was about our politics—our political parties—and the shocking conclusion of a court with no partisan interest in our affairs: Nigeria’s two dominant parties, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), have, through systemic violence and democratic sabotage, operated in ways tantamount to terrorism under Canadian law.
The case arose from an asylum application by Douglas Egharevba, a Nigerian politician who once belonged to the PDP. He sought refuge in Canada, citing political persecution. But Madam Justice Phuong T.V. Ngo upheld earlier findings that both PDP and APC have histories of political violence so entrenched that mere membership in either is grounds for inadmissibility under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The evidence laid before the court was damning: ballot stuffing, voter intimidation, violent suppression of opposition, and a culture of impunity stretching from the PDP’s early years in 2003 and 2004, through the APC’s more recent reigns.
The judge rejected the lazy excuse that “this is just how politics works in Nigeria,” calling it “circular and paradoxical.” In other words: if corruption and violence are the rules of the game, then the game is not democracy.
Why Nigerians Must Pay Attention
This was not a judgment written by an opposition politician, an activist blogger, or an NGO desperate for donor funding. This was a neutral, foreign court assessing our democracy through cold, legal reasoning—and finding it diseased at its core.
We can dismiss it as foreign meddling. We can wave it off as ignorance of our “complex realities.” But to do so would be to miss the point entirely. This ruling is a mirror, held up from afar, reflecting the ugly truth many Nigerians already know but are too fatigued, fearful, or compromised to confront: since 1999, our political system has been managed, not by political parties in the true sense of the word, but by political cartels.
What a Political Party Is Meant to Be
The word party suggests a gathering where everyone present has a voice, a stake, and a role. In political science, a party is an organized group bound by an ideology—shared beliefs about how society should be governed. It has rules that bind both leaders and members. It educates its members. It disciplines those who betray its values. It exists to serve the nation, not the personal ambitions of a clique.
By this definition, no political party in Nigeria today qualifies as a true party. We have electoral machines, not ideological movements. We have platforms for power capture, not schools of democratic thought. We have cults of personality, not communities of purpose.
This is why elections feel like recycling—moving from PDP’s failures to APC’s failures and back again—because the rot is not in the logo or the colours, but in the structure and culture.
The Two Choices Before 2027
This Canadian ruling leaves Nigerians with two stark choices:
1. Revolution from Within: Citizens—especially youths—must enter these parties en masse and fight for internal democracy. Demand charters of principles. Demand transparent primaries. Demand that violence and vote buying attract swift expulsion. Demand that ideology—not godfatherism—determines who leads.
2. Look Beyond the Cartels: Support smaller, disciplined parties that stand on clear principles and refuse to rent themselves out to power brokers. Build movements around ideas, not personalities. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, they may lose at first. But democracy is not a one-election project—it’s a culture we must build brick by brick.
We Must Redefine “Party” Before We Can Rebuild Nigeria
Until we fix how parties are structured, Nigeria cannot be fixed. You cannot have a functional nation without functional political parties. The party is the factory where leaders are produced, tested, and refined. If the factory is broken, every product will be defective—no matter the packaging.
Our failure to build ideological parties is why the same recycled elite move from platform to platform without shame. It is why parties have no policies beyond slogans. It is why governance feels the same no matter who wins.
The Path Forward
We must:
Demand legislation that ties party registration to internal democratic standards.
Push INEC to audit party constitutions and enforce compliance.
Build civic education campaigns that teach citizens what a political party truly is and why it matters.
Organize—not just to vote—but to shape the platforms we vote for.
Conclusion: A Foreign Court Has Done What Our Own Will Not
That a Canadian court could declare our ruling parties as violent actors should embarrass our judiciary, our electoral bodies, and our political elite. But embarrassment alone will change nothing. The question is: Will Nigerians use this as a turning point?
2027 will not save us if we walk into it with the same mindset that brought us here. Whether we reform the APC and PDP from within, or build credible alternatives from without, one truth remains: until Nigerians reclaim the ideology and structure of the political party, democracy will remain an empty ritual, and our nation a mismanaged project.
We can keep dancing at this masquerade of democracy—or we can crash the party, rewrite the rules, and host a new one worthy of Nigeria’s future.
Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder. He’s also President Voice of His Word Ministries and Convener Apostolic Round Table. BoT Chairman, Project Victory Call Initiative, AKA PVC Naija. He is a strategic Communicator and the C.E.O, Masterbuilder Communications.
