•Governor Fintiri’s pardon saves inmate from execution
Sunday Jackson, an Adamawa State farmer sentenced to death for killing a herder who attacked him on his farm, has been saved from a date with the hangman. Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, as part of the state’s Christmas and New Year clemency exercise, granted him a state pardon after Jackson spent 10 years incarcerated, including five years on death row.
Fintiri’s act of clemency was announced in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Humwashi Wonosikou. The announcement sparked spontaneous jubilation across Yola, the Adamawa State capital, as residents trooped out to celebrate what they perceived as justice done.
The governor said his decision followed recommendations by the Adamawa clemency panel, based on assessments of inmates’ conduct while in custody. “In the exercise of my prerogative of mercy as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and in line with the recommendations of the Adamawa State Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy, I have granted pardon to three persons and directed the remission of the remainder of the sentences of five others,” Fintiri explained, saying the beneficiaries had showed good behaviour in incarceration.
The governor also granted state pardon to Joseph Eugene, serving his term at the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Yola, and Maxwell Ibrahim, serving his sentence at the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Kaduna. Five inmates whose remaining terms were remitted are Joshua James, Adamu Ibrahim, Mohammed Abubakar, Ibrahim Usman and Saidu Abubakar, serving sentences at the Medium Security Custodial Centres in Numan and Jada.
Jackson, a local farmer in Kodomti village, Demsa council area of Adamawa State, was convicted of killing a Fulani herdsman who invaded his farm to graze cattle. The incident occurred in January 2015 while cultivating his farm, as the herder allegedly attacked him for objecting to cattle being grazed on the farm. Jackson managed to overpower the herder during a struggle in which he sustained severe injuries, but which also resulted in the herder’s death.
The Adamawa farmer was charged under Section 221(a) of the Penal Code Laws of Adamawa State 1997 for the death of a herdsman. According to court documents, he testified that the deceased had approached him on his farm, questioned him about the whereabouts of some passersby, and then began to graze his cattle on Jackson’s farmland. When confronted, the herder allegedly drew a knife and attacked Jackson, stabbing him at the back of the head and in the leg as he tried to flee.
The accused recounted that fearing for his life, he managed to disarm the herder and, in the process, stabbed him. During cross-examination, Jackson said he never thought his actions would result in the herder’s death.
In its case, however, the prosecution presented Jackson’s confessional statement to the police by which he admitted to stabbing the herdsman.
In its verdict in 2021, the Adamawa High Court found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging for the killing, saying he had the opportunity to escape rather than kill the assailant.
Dissatisfied with the verdict, Jackson approached the Court of Appeal to overturn the trial court’s decision. But the appellate court affirmed the conviction and sentence.
Early in 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence in a majority verdict, thereby exhausting Jackson’s hope for a reprieve through the courts. A dissenting opinion among the justices canvassed clemency for him, though.
Following his conviction, Jackson was moved from Adamawa to Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre in Abuja, where he spent years on death row. Several interest groups, however, argued that self-defence was obviously the motive on which he acted and called for a review of the case – citing moral, legal and humanitarian deficits of executing a man who acted to save himself from attack. Such interests – among them civil society and human rights groups, faith-based organisations and members of the public – clamoured for clemency for Jackson, which they equated to true justice.
The case has, thus, been trailed by years of sustained advocacy. On the other hand, Fulani groups hailed the Supreme Court verdict, which they construed as affirming their right to freely graze cattle, and a legal response to seeming targeted attacks against their members.
The case also attracted international attention. In November 2025, a member of the United States Congress, Riley Moore, called on the Nigerian government to pardon Jackson, describing his offence as a patent act of self-defence. Moore argued that Jackson acted to protect his life during the encounter, and he questioned the fairness of imposing the death penalty under such circumstances.
Jackson’s case also came up in the US legislature during a debate on President Donald Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern over alleged Christian genocide.
The most prominent responses to the state pardon came from the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as well as US Congressman Riley Moore. CAN, in a statement by its chairperson, Yakubu Pam, lauded Governor Fintiri for a “courageous and compassionate decision” that the association said had brought “immense relief, hope, and reassurance to citizens across the region and beyond.” The statement added that the pardon “affirms the belief that justice, when guided by wisdom and mercy, can still prevail within our legal and political systems.”
Moore, for his part, described Jackson’s pardon as a “positive development” in Nigeria-United States relations. “After more than a decade in prison serving a death sentence for defending himself, Sunday Jackson has now been pardoned,” he noted, urging that the clemency beneficiary be protected during and after his release. Moore also noted that the case had become symbolic of broader security and justice concerns affecting rural communities in Nigeria.
The Jackson affair is symptomatic of the national menace that informed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s establishment of a presidential livestock reforms panel co-chaired by former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega. The panel was raised in July 2024 to address challenges in the livestock sector, including farmer-herder conflicts, and to unlock the sector’s economic potential estimated to exceed N1.7trn in value chain.
Key recommendations by the panel included a 10-year transformation process through which Nigerians and the government can harness gains in the sector. The committee also proposed that livestock grazing and ranching be operated side-by-side as the country pursues a long-term objective of having an intensive livestock sector. Besides, it recommended operational guidelines for the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development that the Tinubu administration newly created.
The Jackson reprieve should serve as a stark reminder that Nigeria’s livestock-keeping culture is work in progress, and efforts must be intensified to evolve a practice that will foster long-term harmony between farmers and herders.
The Jackson pardon, in our view, is also an appropriate juncture for national reflection on the stipulation of the death penalty in our statute books. Nigeria is reported to currently have more than 3,500 persons on death row. However, the last known implementation of capital punishment occurred in 2016 in Edo State, meaning the country has maintained a de facto moratorium on capital punishment while the penalty remains legal and the courts continue to issue death sentences, with no actual executions taking place. There’s a sense in which keeping people interminably on death row is itself avoidable injustice.
