A lawyer, Victor Giwa, stated on Channels TV’s The Morning Brief that a recent Canadian court’s judgment, which linked the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to terrorism, was in line with Canada’s criminal law.
He clarified that the court did not label the parties as terrorist organizations but instead said they were “like a terrorist organisation.”
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The lawyer explained, “The Canadian Federal Court in June made the pronouncement that the PDP is like a terrorist organisation, not that they have been declared a terrorist organisation. We need to put it in perspective.
“Now, in the Canadian law, under the Canadian Criminal Code, Section 83, Subsection 01, defines an act of terrorism to be any political, religious, or ideological act that was done with the intention of causing death, serious bodily harm, intimidation, and risk to any life.
“They define such an act of intimidation as any act that will lead to death or serious bodily harm, or can put somebody in threat of death as a terrorist act under the Canadian Criminal Code. So it is based on that.
“They saw the activities of the PDP as, at the time the young man claimed to be a member of the PDP, that the PDP was involved in subversion of the democratic structure, intimidation, killing of political opponents’ candidates, and snatching of ballot papers.
“So in all this, looking at the criminal court of Canada, those actions amount to terrorism. So, it is based on the Canadian criminal code that they made that pronouncement because they have to judge him (Douglas) by the law in Canada.”
The lawyer also said that the PDP and the APC could not appeal the judgment because it followed Canada’s criminal code.
Giwa also said that judgment showed the impact of electoral violence on Nigeria’s image.
“What it tells us is that as members of political parties, Nigerians should be aware that their activities, the things they do in pursuit of political power — we are in a global village — are in the knowledge of everybody, that people are watching, people are seeing us, and this is one of the implications of some of these activities of our politicians.”
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