When President Bola Tinubu announced clemency and pardons for 175 individuals – including posthumous gestures to figures like revered Nigerian nationalist Herbert Macaulay, General Mamman Vatsa, and the Ogoni Nine – the usual storm of outrage was triggered.
Social media moralists, opposition opportunists, and even some well-meaning commentators cried foul. “Selective justice”, “outright injustice” some said; others dismissed it as “a political move.” Many scoffed at the symbolism, asking what good a pardon does for the dead. A popular joke online was “who will pardon the president?”
As more details of the beneficiaries were released, critics lighted upon the case of one Maryam Sanda who, five years ago, was convicted of stabbing her husband Bilyaminu Bello, to death over a domestic dispute. This was clearly a tragedy that had torn immediate and extended families apart. The wounds are still raw as is clear from the emotional statement released by victim’s family denouncing the government’s action.
For now, we may not know what made Sanda’s case so compelling that the committee chose her as a beneficiary given the gravity of her offence and the time spent so far in jail.
But in a climate of intense cynicism and partisanship, the usual suspects have piled on the president as though he, personally, spent months wading through the 40,000-plus inmate population, just to favour a select group of convicts. Beyond mischief-making, the critics are yet to make a convincing case of how showing mercy to these people benefits Tinubu politically.
Let’s be clear, this whole process is rooted in law – specifically, Section 175 of the 1999 Constitution, which grants the President the prerogative of mercy. The Presidential Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy is chaired by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi. It has as members eminent lawyers, jurists and representatives of the following: Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
They reviewed nearly 300 cases, interviewed over 100 inmates, and made recommendations. The final list included 82 inmates granted clemency, 65 whose sentences were reduced, and seven death-row inmates whose sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.
Among them were two living former convicts and 15 deceased ones who received posthumous pardons – including some whose names carry the weight of history: Macaulay, the nationalist branded seditionist by the British colonial government; Major General Vatsa, executed in 1986 on a treason charge; and the Ogoni Nine, whose execution under Sani Abacha remains one of the darkest moments in Nigeria’s history.
It’s easy to forget that the prerogative of mercy exists precisely because justice, however well-intentioned, is never perfect. Courts can make mistakes. People have spent decades in jail only to have their convictions overturned. And even where guilt is established, punishment without redemption breeds bitterness, not rehabilitation.
Clearly, imprisonment isn’t just about paying the price for crime it also aims at rehabilitating convicts. Little wonder the name Nigerian Prison Service (NPS) was changed to Nigerian Correctional Services (NCS) – highlighting this higher goal.
Critics who call this president’s action a political stunt overlook a few basic realities. For one, the committee’s criteria were clear: age, terminal illness, exemplary conduct in prison, evidence of remorse, and recommendation by correctional officers. Many of the beneficiaries are poor, forgotten people – men and women who have spent time behind bars, often for minor offences, and who have long ceased to pose any threat to society. Some were convicted in their teens and have grown old behind bars. For them, clemency isn’t politics; it’s mercy long delayed.
Periodic acts of mercy are not indulgences; they are necessary pressure valves in an overburdened justice system. It’s no coincidence that every democratic government since independence has exercised this power at one point or another. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo did. Umaru Yar’Adua did. Goodluck Jonathan did. Even Muhammadu Buhari – not exactly famous for sentimentality – did.
In November 2002, Obasanjo pardoned 80 secessionist soldiers who fought against Nigeria during the 1967-1970 Civil War. On October 1, 2004, he showed mercy to 62 convicts. In March 2013, Jonathan pardoned his former boss, Diepreiye Alamieyeisegha, who had been jailed for two years for embezzling state funds. At the time of his arrest in September 2005, British Metropolitan police found about £1million in cash in his London home.
All over the world presidential pardons are often controversial. Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and Joe Biden got many tongues clucking by granting clemency to relatives and dodgy characters. Donald Trump hasn’t been a slouch either in this department. Still, the tsunami-like criticism that has greeted Tinubu’s action just seems overdone.
We can put that down to our selective outrage. We are perfectly fine when governors release prisoners during festive seasons, but become irate when the President does same on a larger scale. When our preferred political figures, “freedom fighters” and secessionist leaders are jailed, we demand mercy and beg for their release – even when their guilt is yet to be established in court or innocence proven. When the same mercy is extended to others, we sneer.
Take the posthumous pardons. Some have dismissed them as empty symbolism – too little, too late. But it matters. Pardoning Herbert Macaulay or the Ogoni Nine isn’t about rewriting history; it’s about acknowledging it. It’s a way of saying: yes, the state once erred, and we recognise that injustice now. That has moral value. It’s an act of national memory – a small but significant gesture toward reconciliation.
In a country where successive governments have buried their mistakes rather than confront them, such acts should be welcomed, not mocked. We cannot, on one hand, demand that Nigeria reckon with its colonial and military pasts, and on the other, scoff when it takes even a modest step toward that reckoning. That’s hypocrisy, plain and simple.
There’s also the criticism that some of the pardoned, like former House of Representatives member Farouk Lawan, don’t deserve mercy because their offences – in this case, bribery – represents the rot in our politics. Fair enough. But mercy was never designed for the innocent alone. The guilty, too, are human. If the law gives room for clemency, it’s because society recognises that punishment can correct but should not dehumanise.
Those who worry that such gestures undermine deterrence misunderstand the balance between justice and mercy. Clemency doesn’t erase guilt; it acknowledges transformation. It says: “You have paid enough.” And that message, when applied transparently, strengthens rather than weakens the moral authority of the state.
Of course, there’s always the danger of abuse – of political allies being rewarded under the guise of compassion. Nigeria has seen that before. But the answer to possible abuse is not to abandon mercy altogether. It is to ensure transparency, clear criteria, and a functional justice system that works fairly from the start.
If anything, Tinubu’s move was balanced. It wasn’t a blanket amnesty. It mixed the symbolic with the practical, the famous with the forgotten. It reached backward into history and forward into the present. That’s not cynicism – that’s an attempt at a moral statement.
We might also consider what kind of society we want to be. One obsessed with punishment, or one capable of compassion? For all our public displays of religiosity, we are quick to condemn and slow to forgive. The same people who chant “Lord have mercy” on Sundays become self-appointed hangmen by Monday. Yet no nation ever healed when obsessed with vengeance.
In the end, the outrage over these pardons says more about us than about the President. We distrust power so deeply that we can no longer recognise sincerity when it appears. We assume every gesture has a hidden motive, every policy a sinister plot. That cynicism, understandable as it may be, sometimes blinds us to what is plainly good.
Tinubu’s pardons will not fix Nigeria’s justice system. They won’t end overcrowded prisons or erase the wounds of the past. But they are a small reminder that mercy, too, has a place in governance.
