A Canadian court’s verdict on Nigeria’s democracy

LAST week, the federal Court of Canada, presided over by Justice Sébastien Grammond, gave a ruling that has shaken more than one man—it has shaken the image of an entire nation. Douglas Egharevba, a Nigerian who once belonged to both the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), was denied permanent residency in Canada. The court concluded that his association with PDP disqualified him, citing the party’s longstanding record of undermining democratic principles. Ironically, his more recent membership in APC did not redeem him. [APC ex-Chair, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, must hear this!] This verdict was not against an individual. It was a mirror held up to Nigeria’s political class, reflecting back to us the image we often refuse to confront: Our politics is broken, our democracy hollow, and our parties little more than shells for power without principle. For decades, I have argued that we must stop borrowing the language of civics that does not reflect our reality. Canada’s verdict validates my position. In Nigeria, APC and PDP are not ideological rivals; they are two wings of the same vulture. Power does not shift because ideas win. It shifts because the elite rebrand their alliances to maintain access to resources. Governors formed the “New PDP” only to merge with APC in 2015. State parliaments defect en masse, depending on where the winds of patronage blow. Political heavyweights switch camps every election cycle, yet nothing changes. These are not political parties. They are platforms of convenience—transactional pipelines to power.

Canada has simply said what we already know but refuse to admit: This is not governance, it is opportunism. In Finland, the Ministry of Education is also called the “Ministry of Education and Culture.” That pairing signals a deep truth: Education must flow from the soul of a people. In Nigeria, our education still teaches “Government” as though we live in Westminster. We describe political parties as platforms of ideological contestation, when in reality they are pipelines of compromise and corruption. We teach “elections” without naming the realities of ballot box snatching, vote-buying, judiciary capture, and voter suppression. We teach civic responsibility with no civic credibility. We teach history while sanitising [deodorising, really] our national sins. We teach character education while our leaders model moral decay. If we continue to dress the wound of our democracy with imported bandages, the rot will only deepen.

This Canadian ruling is bigger than one man’s immigration case. It is a global indictment of Nigeria’s political culture: •That political affiliation in Nigeria can now render someone inadmissible in a democratic nation is a signal to the world. •That switching to the ruling party could not save him shows there is no meaningful difference between APC and PDP. •That our political brand has become a liability abroad should give every Nigerian leader pause. Canada’s message is simple: if your political methodology is faulty, your democratic claims cannot be trusted. The indictment does not end there. In a related case, the same Canadian court denied permanent residency to a former Nigerian police officer, describing the Nigeria Police Force as an “evil force.” Two verdicts, two institutions, one message: Nigeria’s governance systems are exporting shame.

The warning we ignore is that the world is watching, and the evil being perpetuated by our elite will one day hunt them down. This moment is an echo of Martin Niemöller’s haunting words:“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” For years, Nigerians have been told to “protect your votes.” Yet the elite control the menu of choices placed before us. They manufacture the ballot, rig the outcomes, and leave us performing democracy instead of practising it. “Go to court”  Beyond exporting oil and people, we now also export institutional shame.

The path forward is not cosmetic. It is not simply about elections. It begins with systemic electoral reform:

1. A new social and political dictionary written from Nigeria’s peculiar realities. 2. A civic education curriculum that confronts ballot-snatching, violence, and vote-buying—not to normalise them, but to empower reform. 3. Transparent electoral institutions that cannot be captured by the elite at will. If we keep lying to ourselves, we will recycle the same fate for our children. If we hide from the truth, we will hand them a democracy built on sand. This is why we must amplify voices like Randy Peters, who is courageously pressing for electoral reform. He is doing the Lord’s work by naming the truth that others avoid. If Nigeria is ever to press restart, it will be because people like him refused to let silence win.

Deputy Chief Whip and representative of Ebonyi North Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi,  recently caused an uproar in the polity when he downplayed the raging controversy over the remuneration of Nigerian lawmakers. During an interview with the News Central TV, the senator was asked how much was the take-home pay of a senator in Nigeria and his reply was this: “If you want to know my salary, it is very easy for you to do that. If you go to relevant agencies, it is a public document. The salary is there but I can assure you that that salary you are looking at, if I spend it with you within two days, you will agree with me that we leaders are actually suffering.”

When asked if he had isolated the salaries of lawmakers alone or the total package of salaries and allowances, the senator became more impassioned, saying: “Everything put together, everything put together. If I place it on the table with you, for one week, you will borrow money for me, you will pity me, you wouldn’t even like to come into it because it is not the way you see it. The burden is much on us politicians, we are suffering and smiling but like I said, it is not for pity that we campaigned. It is a mandate we fought for and we must use it to better the lives of our people. If you come to my constituency, I can tell you some projects that are ongoing which are not in the budget but I am sponsoring those projects because I have the passion and my people need those services.”

Predictably, Senator Nwaebonyi’s claim was condemned by many Nigerians. This is because the wages of Nigerian lawmakers have been the subject of debates for a while, given the opacity around it. Nigerians are justly bothered about the earnings of their lawmakers being shrouded in mystery. The fact, as revealed by a few of the lawmakers in rare moments of candour, is that the federal lawmakers earn such humongous allowances that they are too ashamed to reveal or too afraid to let Nigerians know. The Nigerian people, who have wallowed in untold poverty, lack and degradation for decades, should not have had to contend with the kind of segregationist attention paid to lawmakers’ welfare by successive governments. While the cost of living has made life almost unlivable for Nigerians over the years, lawmakers’ welfare has been habitually and embarrassingly enhanced. Thus, when Senator Nwaebonyi made the laughable comment on the television programme imputing that lawmakers live excruciating lives of lack, he attracted flak and mockery from a people enraged at the uneven scale of comfort between them and their representatives in parliament.

Convinced that the Nigerian legislature is the metaphorical Bermuda Triangle where the Nigerian wealth is buried, Nigerians have canvassed that lawmaking be made a part-time venture. They have consistently queried why lawmakers who waste away a substantial portion of their legislative time table in the name of recesses and whose major preoccupation is with matters having to do with their welfare and “constituency projects,” should be rewarded with such stupendous remuneration. Nwaebonyi apparently provoked the critical public when, rather than give a figure to the “paltry” salaries and allowances he claimed are collected by senators, he chose to go on a circus. Was the senator concerned that if he revealed the actual earnings of senators, he would either face suspension or get the legislative institution roundly lampooned by impoverished Nigerians?

 To be sure, many Nigerians would gladly trade places with the distinguished senator and earn his “paltry” salary and allowances. For years, the National Assembly establishment  has  rebuffed attempts by Nigerians to know what lawmakers earn. Till date, apart from disguised and undisguised jabs at the Nigerian people such as the impassioned remarks by Nwaebonyi, no attempt has been made to come clean on lawmakers’ wages. Nigeria is certainly one of the few countries, if not the only country, in the world where lawmakers’ allowances are cult secrets. It can be no surprise, then, that the interpretation given to this travesty by the Nigerian people is that they earn such stupendous salaries and allowances that they are too ashamed to reveal or too alarmed to let people know about. This is unfortunate because in most countries of the world, the salaries and allowances of lawmakers are on government websites, and any query that constituents have is attended to with dispatch.

A troubling dimension came into the Nigerian governmental system when lawmakers began performing executive functions. Frequently, lawmakers speak of achievements in road construction and the like. This is an anomaly, and everything that can be done to stop it should be done, and with urgency too. While lawmakers are expected to attract projects to their constituencies by lobbying the executive, they are not expected to become emergency contractors. A situation where lawmakers get involved in executive functions is not ideal. Neither is a situation in which they collude with ministers and heads of government departments and agencies to rip the people off, or whimsically inserting projects into the national budgets and using them as funnels of corruption.

ALSO READ: 15% of Nigerian girls aged 15–19 are mothers or pregnant — FG

Canada has blown the wind, and the skeletons are in full view. The world will no longer clap for our performance of democracy. Now is the time to tell the truth to our children, to teach it in our schools, and to live it in our politics. The verdict is clear: Until Nigeria reforms its democracy, belonging to its political elite will remain a badge of shame, not honour.

Nigeria can win…and I believe it.

•Ukoh, an alumnus of American University of Nigeria, Yola, and PhD student at Columbia University, writes from New York.