The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed claims that a Canadian court declared the party a terrorist organisation.
In a statement issued on Friday, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, described the reports circulating in the media as “fake and misleading.”
He clarified that the alleged declaration was linked to a case involving “Douglas Egharevba, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness”, in which the applicant sought judicial review of a decision by Canada’s Immigration Appeal Division (IAD).
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The IAD had ruled Egharevba inadmissible to Canada under the country’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
According to Morka, the court decision, delivered on 17 June by Judge Phuong T.V. Ngo, dismissed the application for judicial review.
The judge based the ruling on the finding that the applicant was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was deemed to have engaged in acts of subversion under paragraph 34(1)(b.1) of the IRPA, rendering him inadmissible to Canada.
Morka stressed that the APC was not referenced in the ruling and that any suggestion to the contrary was “completely unfounded.”
Morka said, “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.”
He noted that the sole reference to the APC in the entire 16-page judgment appeared in the introductory “background” section, specifically in paragraph 4.
Morka said in the paragraph, the court cited a “background declaration form” in which the applicant stated, “He was a member of the PDP of Nigeria from December 1999 until December 2007, and a member of the APC 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, which didn’t exist at the time. For the avoidance of doubt, we dare to state that the court never made any determination on the question of terrorism in its decision. In 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. Clearly, reports that APC was declared as a terrorist organisation by the Canadian court in this matter are 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. We urge our Party faithful, supporters and all Nigerians to disregard the reports as false and misleading.”
