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Tag: presidential pardon

  • Much ado about a presidential pardon

    Much ado about a presidential pardon

    By Tunde Rahman

    The past week showed how people can easily misconstrue well-intentioned actions of the government. After the presidential pardon and clemency were handed down to some Nigerians and a few foreigners, intense controversy had erupted. Indeed, some commentators and analysts have been so vocal against the clemency, particularly as it relates to drug trafficking and capital offence convicts.

    Following the consultation with the Council of State on Thursday, October 11, President Bola Tinubu granted some reprieve to 175 persons. The reprieve was based on the recommendations of the Presidential Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy, headed by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi.

    Pardoned posthumously by President Tinubu were foremost nationalist Sir Herbert Macaulay; poet and soldier Major-General Mamman Vatsa; the writer and environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight fellow Ogoni activists, as well as the four Ogoni leaders considered his antagonists. Also pardoned were some jailed illegal miners, public officials found guilty of corruption, remorseful drug offenders and capital offence convicts, including Maryam Sanda, who is on death row for killing her husband in 2017 in a matrimonial row. The last two categories are the most controversial. I will dwell on them shortly. 

    The list of beneficiaries of the presidential reprieve is long and comprehensive. The committee went as far back as what transpired during the pre-independence era. For instance, the pardon granted to Macaulay corrected the historic injustice done to him by the British Colonialists. The case of the Ogoni 4 and Ogoni 9 killings that occurred in November 1995 during the military dictatorship of late General Sani Abacha was to engender complete reconciliation in Ogoniland. This presidential gesture has been widely applauded in Ogoniland and the entire South-South geopolitical zone.

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    Presidential Spokesman Bayo Onanuga had explained in the statement announcing the pardon that President Tinubu granted the clemency because most of the convicts had shown sufficient remorse and good conduct. Others were due to old age, acute medical conditions, acquisition of new vocational skills or enrolment in the National Open University.

    It must be pointed out that the presidency fully disclosed the pardon as a matter of full disclosure and transparency. Some other governments will typically mask the complete list, knowing it would generate controversy. This open gesture signifies that the Tinubu government has nothing to hide. Contrary to the erroneous suggestions by some people, there was no ulterior or political motive to the pardon.

    However, whether in Nigeria or other jurisdictions where presidents have the power to exercise the prerogative of mercy,  the exercise is always controversial.

    A similar storm was ignited during the Second Republic when President Shehu Shagari pardoned former warlord Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu for his role in the country’s 30-month civil war. Public outrage also greeted the full and unconditional pardon granted in 2013 by former President Goodluck Jonathan to his former boss and ally, the late Bayelsa governor Diepreye Alamieyesiegha, who was convicted of stealing millions of dollars.

    The presidential pardon and the response it usually elicits are no different internationally, particularly in the United States. President Bill Clinton reportedly signed 140 pardons on January 20, 2001, his last day in office. This included one for his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, who was convicted in 1985 for cocaine possession and drug trafficking.

    According to Newsweek, such was Roger Clinton’s notoriety that the US Secret Service codenamed him “Headache” because of the constant trouble he gave President Clinton in office.

    Former US President Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, after he had publicly pledged not to do so. Hunter Biden was convicted between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024, of offences, including gun running. President Biden also reportedly pardoned his other relatives who were convicted of sundry offences. 

    In his first term, President Donald Trump, in December 2020, pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, who is married to his daughter, Ivanka Trump. Jared Kushner was convicted of illegal campaign funding, tax evasion and witness tampering. All the pardons were intensely controversial.

    Back home, the present clemency for some drug offenders, along with that of Maryam Sanda, has emerged as the most contentious. For instance, in his seeming desperation to nail the government over Maryam Sanda’s pardon, last Tuesday, October 14, a columnist in Leadership newspaper, Abdulrauf Aliyu, went overboard in an article centred on Sanda’s pardon. It was titled “The Theatre of Presidential Pardon.” The columnist lied that the pardon was granted to Sanda before the final determination of the case, claiming that the case was still pending before the Supreme Court. 

    He proceeded on that wrong premise and argued that the government tempered the law for mercy. Nothing can be further from the truth! This is a rather sad commentary for a columnist who should know better. The Supreme Court has since affirmed the judgment of the Appeal Court confirming Sanda’s conviction.

    Sanda’s pardon is well-intentioned. Apart from the reports that Sanda had shown remorse in prison, it has also emerged that her father-in-law, Alhaji Ahmed Bello Isa, the father of the late Bilyaminu Bello, sought clemency for her. Alhaji Isa has disclosed that he personally appealed to both Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Tinubu to grant her pardon so she can take care of the two children left behind by his son. He said the continued stay of her daughter-in-law or indeed her death would not bring back Bilyaminu.

    Also, the convicted drug offenders have spent time in jail. Some of them have even enrolled in the Open University or learned a new trade. It would be unfair to argue that former drug trafficking offenders who have shown remorse and turned a new leaf do not deserve mercy or forgiveness. Clemency for them, in my view, does not mean the war against drug trafficking has been compromised.

    The law remains that anyone indulging in illicit drugs will have a date with the law. The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) under General Buba Marwa (rtd) is doing a yeoman’s job trying to ensure drug traffickers are brought to book and the country is free of hard drugs and their menace. 

    Instructively, the AGF and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, whose committee recommended the pardon, has affirmed that the list is still subject to review. None of the pardoned inmates has been released. He said the process is undergoing the final administrative review to satisfy the required legal and procedural standards before the release instruments are signed and issued. The list of those pardoned has to be gazetted by the government. Until that is done, there is still ample room for review. President Tinubu will not be averse to any required review

    The President was moved by compassion and his legendary kind-heartedness in approving the pardon. There is no evidence that he has an offspring, blood relation, or known associate on the pardon or clemency list. The opposition politicians, who have also been very strident in criticising President Tinubu over the pardon, will continue to do so even when confronted with the fundamental justification for the action. However, those who benefited from the pardon and their families will continue to appreciate the President’s humane gesture. 

    *Rahman is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media & Special Duties.

  • Underage rioters and presidential pardon

    Underage rioters and presidential pardon

    There have been comments on the incarceration of juvenile delinquents in prison following the violent demonstrations in Abuja and elsewhere against what they called “bad governance”. We should all salute the president for asking the children to be released immediately. There are so many questions troubling my mind about this. Why were underage children demonstrating in the first place? Where were their parents? Government should follow their release with knowing what kind of homes they came from. It could be they don’t have homes and perhaps they are street urchins as we find in many of our towns today.

    The time has come for our various governments particularly the states and local governments to develop policies to face this problem before they get out of hands. This lumpen proletariat are the stuff of violence and revolution in the future. Why were these children not in school where they should be learning a skill or acquiring knowledge that may be useful to them in the future?

    Since when has it become the responsibility of children to engage in political action in this country? Who were the people goading these children to go to the streets? What kind of legitimate punishment can a society inflict on these errant children without appearing inhuman and harsh? We have remand homes for these kinds of children but are they available all over the country? My church, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, has these kinds of homes in some parts of the country. Government should join such missions to make the system effective and more encompassing.  Is the fact that so many children were involved in these demonstrations not a manifestation of failure of parents and government to have institutions that will prepare our country for the future?

    What can we do, going forward in terms of overhauling our educational system so that our children can develop a sense of civic responsibility? Of course, responsible adults have the right to protest against what they consider bad policies, but they should not bring children to swell their ranks and create a mob instead of responsible demonstration. Generally speaking, people tend to find security in committing crimes or misdemeanour when they are in large numbers and individuals cannot be easily caught for their bad behaviour. It is for this reason that demonstrators tend to recruit all and sundry to join them in creating a mob mentality in which crimes are not seen as crimes and easily detected.

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    Recently in Valencia, Spain, demonstrators were seen throwing stones and mud at the king and queen and the Spanish prime minister who went to commiserate with victims of flood in the country. This will not happen ordinarily but when people demonstrating are joined by others and become a mob, all sense of responsibility departs from them. In the case under reference, the prime minister of Spain was quickly spirited away to avoid being killed, the king and queen showing a sense noblesse oblige stayed despite the violence on the poor couple!

    Do we in our country sincerely have the correct attitude about demonstration against government policies without injecting ethnic sentiments which seem to ruin everything at every point our politics in this country and which in turn draws the anger and negative reaction of our governments whether at state or national level? All these are issues which we must discuss not only to deal with the problems of now but also that of the future.

    Are there genuine reasons to criticize our present government? The answer is of course yes.  The present government is certainly not responsible for the downturn of the economy but it is currently in situ and the government in power; so the government is vicariously responsible for the bad situation. There is no doubt that the people are suffering. We have never had it so bad in this country. The value of the Naira is so bad that it reminds one of Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe where one took money to the market in a basket and brought home in one’s hand a loaf of bread. A good loaf of bread now costs N2,000. If one wants to replace bread with yams, the cost is also prohibitive. I sometimes joke with yam sellers in my area whether the rate of exchange of dollars is also affecting the cost of yams. The answer is that the cost of transportation has led to the astronomical cost of home grown vegetables, fruits, yams, cassava and other Nigerian staples. The solution to this is massive production of food items. But who will produce this food items when the farming population has drifted to the towns and left farming to old men and women? 

    The role of government in this case is to embark on mass education to let the people know the solution to our problems. Government must not allow itself to be pushed to importing rice and other food items when we have the land and water and abundant sunshine as well as the people to produce what we will eat. The Holy Bible says he who does not work shall not eat. It is as simple as that. The purpose of government is to provide the security within which the people will fend for themselves. It is partly the absence of this security that is at the root of all our problems.

    If government that controls the organised means of violence is unable to guarantee violence-free society, the people would take to self-help leading to a war of everybody against everyone until a dictator arrives to provide this for all. Our commitment and embrace of democracy ends when that democracy fails to secure our lives. This is why people will protest. But government alone cannot solve all our problems. We as a people must also be determined to help ourselves. When I see young men roaming aimlessly around the streets sometimes begging, I know we have a problem. Escaping to other countries to do jobs they will not do at home is not the solution. We need a campaign of going back to the land. This campaign has to be based on our local government areas and states and not on the federation. The role of the federal government should be mobilising national and international support for the production and adding value to our products and exporting our surplus. This does not mean everybody must be a farmer. Only 4% of the population of the United States is actively involved in agriculture and through mechanisation and industrialisation of the process, they not only feed the entire United States but have enough to feed the whole world. This is the path to go. We have to move away from back bending hoe and cutlass agriculture to modern farming practice. Government and the banking sector have to generously fund agricultural production in our country and it is by massive production and exchange with the rest of the world that we will have enough resources to develop other sectors of our economy leading to having a stable economy and stable currency that would guarantee security of our savings and secure our economic future. Nobody is going to do this for us. There is no free lunch anywhere and we don’t have to be slaves to either capitalist free enterprise or centralised command socialist system that may have worked elsewhere. What we do and do well and if it works is what we need to adopt as a working paradigm for us and our own clime. There is no perfect system or country anywhere in this world. Many of the countries our people run to are actually in decline and are looking for what works better than what they have. The past in which some countries fed fat on the subjugation of others is gradually becoming a thing of the past and many centres of colonial imposition are not what they used to be and it is in the nature of things to see old things yield for the new and if we understand this and play our cards well and work hard, the future may yet be ours. We just have to be realistic. When I was at the University of Ibadan in the 1960s, students lived as spoiled brats. We had a choice of meals three times a day. We even had stewards waiting on us. Our rooms were cleaned by hired hands and we were entitled to laundry service up to 10 pieces of clothing including bed sheets every week. We had it too good and we didn’t know it!

    Sometimes I am ashamed to admit that my generation contributed to our current problems. We however have to snap out of our dreams and face the reality. Unfortunately our young people hark back to the past and they don’t want to pay for appropriate services as their colleagues do in other parts of the world and some of the parents goad them in their struggle with governments. This is why I applaud President Tinubu’s proposed conference of youth with the leadership of the present government who must be prepared to listen honestly to the young people who are our future and they must also be prepared to answer difficult questions which the youth will ask them.