Dr Bolaji Akinyemi, President of Voice of His Word Ministries and Convener of the Apostolic Round Table, on Friday urged Nigerians not to dismiss the ruling of a Canadian court on Peoples Democratic Party.
Akinyemi in a press statement obtained by our correspondent noted that the ruling which is a foreign interference was damning verdict on Nigeria’s two dominant political parties, stressing that the two parties have histories of systemic political violence and sabotage that meet the threshold of “terrorism” under Canadian law.
The Federal Court in Ontario, on June 17, 2025, upheld earlier findings in the asylum case of Douglas Egharevba, a former PDP member who sought refuge in Canada citing political persecution. Justice Phuong T.V. Ngo ruled that mere membership in either party could make an individual inadmissible under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Evidence before the court included ballot stuffing, voter intimidation, violent suppression of opposition, and a culture of impunity from the PDP’s early years to the APC’s more recent administrations. Rejecting the defence that such conduct is simply “how politics works in Nigeria,” Justice Ngo called the argument “circular and paradoxical. If corruption and violence are the rules of the game, then the game is not democracy.”
Akinyemi added, “It was a neutral, foreign court looking at our democracy with cold legal eyes—and finding it diseased at its core,” he said. “Since 1999, our political system has been managed not by true political parties, but by political cartels.”
He argued that no major Nigerian party meets the definition of a genuine political party. “We have electoral machines, not ideological movements; platforms for power capture, not schools of democratic thought; cults of personality, not communities of purpose,” he said.
According to him, Nigerians now face two choices: reform the existing parties from within or support smaller, principled parties. “Democracy is not a one-election project—it’s a culture we build brick by brick,” he said.
He insisted that without functional parties, the nation cannot thrive. “The party is the factory where leaders are produced. If the factory is broken, every product will be defective—no matter the packaging,” he said.
Calling for legislation to tie party registration to democratic standards, audits of party constitutions by INEC, and civic education campaigns, he warned: “That a Canadian court could declare our ruling parties violent actors should embarrass our judiciary, our electoral bodies, and our political elite. But embarrassment alone changes nothing. 2027 will not save us if we walk into it with the same mindset that brought us here. 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.”
