FORMER governors Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, were among 159 convicts who were set free under the excuse of state pardon by the National Council of State at its meeting presided over President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday.
Former Governors Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame of Plateau and Taraba States respectively, were serving terms in jail for corruption while in office. The two former governors were said to have been pardoned on health and age grounds.
The Council of State also pardoned 157 other prisoners at its meeting, among who are Brig. Gen. Tajudeen Olanrewaju, who served as Minister of Works under the Abacha junta, Lt. Col Akiyode, who was an aide to Gen Oladipo Diya; Abacha’s second in command, and all the junior officers jailed over the 1990 abortive Gideon Orkar coup.
Former Governor Dariye, now 64, governed Plateau between 1999 and 2007. He was jailed for stealing N2 billion of public funds while serving as governor. While serving at the National Assembly representing Plateau Central Senatorial District in 2015, Dariye was sentenced in June 2018 but still completed his tenure from jail in June 2019.
Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, had on June 12, 2018, convicted Dariye and sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment on charges of criminal breach of trust and two years jail term for criminal misappropriation. But following his appeal against the judgement, the Court of Appeal in Abuja on November 16, 2018, commuted the 14 years jail term to 10. The Court of Appeal affirmed his conviction when it held that Section 416 (2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, prohibited the imposition of a maximum sentence on a first offender, which Dariye was.
In 2021, he appealed his conviction at the Supreme Court where he partly succeeded in quashing his conviction in respect of criminal misappropriation in a unanimous decision of the fiver-person panel, but however lost when the panel upheld his conviction in respect of criminal breach of trust, which attracted a 10-year jail term.
For Nyame, a pastor, now 66, who served as Governor of Taraba State from 1999 to 2007, he was serving a 12-year jail term at the Kuje prison for misappropriation of funds while in office.
The Federal Capital Territory High Court presided over by Justice Adebukola Banjoko in 2018 sentenced Nyame to 14 years in prison without an option of fine for criminal breach of trust in a case of N1.64 billion fraud preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He was accused of criminally misappropriating the funds while in office.
Justice Banjoko found Nyame guilty in 27 out of 41 counts he was charged with and blamed him for financial recklessness and brazen display of executive power without following due process. According to the judgement, the former governor was jailed two years for misappropriation of government funds, seven years for receiving gratification, and five years for obtaining valuable government properties without consideration. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction in February 2020.
The meeting of the Council of State was attended by former presidents and military heads of state, except former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is in the US on medical tourism.
The membership of the Council includes the President, who is Chairman; the Vice-President, who is Deputy Chairman; all former Presidents of Nigeria and all former Heads of the Government of the Federation; all former Chief Justices of Nigeria; the President of the Senate; the Speaker of the House of Representatives; all the Governors of the states of the Federation; and the Attorney-General of the Federation.
