PRESIDENT BOLA AHMED TINUBU’s recent exercise of the prerogative of mercy is a masterclass in the abuse of power. Dressed in the language of statesmanship, it is in fact a profound and catastrophic misjudgement that rewards corruption and insults every law-abiding citizen.
This constitutional instrument, intended as a tool for compassion and national healing, has been twisted into its opposite. The pardon list is a grotesque equivocation, deliberately conflating the long-overdue correction of judicial errors with a dangerous and unprincipled leniency for the architects of our nation’s decline.
This is not mercy – it is a pardon for the guilty at the expense of the public long yearning for the Rule of Law! It is a cynical manoeuvre that undermines the very foundations of Justice and insults the sensibilities of every Nigerian!
Presidential pardon, rooted in our constitution, is designed as a sacred instrument of compassion – a mechanism to correct judicial oversights, foster national reconciliation, or acknowledge extraordinary redemption.
President Tinubu’s exercise is a grotesque perversion of this principle, conflating the long-overdue rectification of historical wrongs with a dangerous and unthoughtful leniency towards the very cancers eating away at our society.
The posthumous pardon for Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 9 is a welcome, if belated, act of historical justice. Similarly, the recognition of nationalist, Herbert Macauley, is commendable. But in this context, these acts feel less like genuine atonement and more like a strategic fig leaf cynically deployed to sanitise a list that pardons grave criminality. The inclusion of these martyrs of conscience alongside merchants of human misery represents a catastrophic moral and logical failure.
The core of this scandal baptized in the nomenclature of Prerogative of Mercy lies in the specifics. It is one thing to show mercy to the infirm or those convicted of minor offenses or politically-toned offences, and who may have demonstrated genuine rehabilitation.
It is entirely another to grant pardons to individuals like: Nweke Francis Chibueze, serving a life sentence for cocaine trafficking; Dr. Nwogu Peters and Farouk Lawan, convicted for fraud and corrupt practices; a wave of other drug offenders convicted for importing and possessing heroin and cocaine; hordes of illegal miners who had sabotaged national economic emancipation; and most alarmingly, Kelvin Oniarah Ezigbe, a notorious kidnap kingpin whose gang murdered a former Deputy Governor and numerous security personnel; kidnapped and tortured judges including eminent lawyer, Mike Ozekhome SAN, for ransom.
The argument that these individuals showed “remorse” or learned “vocational skills” is staggeringly insufficient when weighed against the devastation of their crimes.
What message does this send to the families of security personnel who were killed, and thousands of others who continue to risk their lives, when jail sentences are simply wiped away by a stroke of presidential pen?
What signal does it dispatch to the corrupt politician plundering the public treasury and had by that act decapitated the lives of millions who can now nurse a hope of presidential pardon rather than face final accountability?
Like the above, the pardon of Maryam Sanda, convicted of the culpable homicide of her husband, also sets a perilous precedent. While compassion for her children is understandable, it raises a harrowing question: can the state, after legally establishing guilt for murder, so easily set aside the demand for justice for the victim? This act, and starkingly so, inflicts profound psychological trauma on victims’ families and undermines the intrinsic value of human life.
No doubt, this sweeping clemency dangerously blurs the lines between judicial consequence and political calculation. The inclusion of convicted politicians like Farouk Lawan, who is now free to run for office, inevitably fuels the perception that this is less about justice and more about political settlement ahead of the 2027 elections. It demoralises anti-corruption agencies, the judiciary, and law enforcement, rendering their arduous work seemingly futile.
While President Tinubu has the constitutional right to grant pardons; however, that right comes with the profound responsibility to strengthen, not weaken, the moral fabric of our nation.
President Tinubu’s action tells the honest citizen that crime, if one is well-connected, can indeed pay! It is an affront to every Nigerian who strives for a nation governed by laws, not men; a nation where justice is blind, but mercy is not blind to justice.
NATIONAL RECORD, therefore, stands with all Nigerians betrayed by this grievously egregious misapplication of the Presidential pardon. We call on the National Assembly to exercise its oversight function and demand full disclosure of the opaque rationale behind each pardon.
We also call on organised labour and its civil society allies to voice their unequivocal rejection of this profane trajectory that President Tinubu is forcing the nation to tread.
The presidency is ethically bound to reconsider this deeply flawed exercise of power and ensure that future actions are undertaken with the wisdom, transparency, and moral clarity the Nigerian people deserve.
To pardon the vices that hold our nation captive is not, and will never be an act of ‘renewed hope’. Rather, it is an abdication of the fundamental duty to protect the citizenry and uphold the sanctity of justice, especially in a period the nation is held spellbound by wanton criminality. History, definitely, will not judge this kindly!
