By Ugoji Egbujo
In exercise of his prerogative powers of mercy, Tinubu pardoned a convicted murderer on death row. He also pardoned drug barons. He pardoned a kidnapper. That power was given to him on trust by the people. In a country ravaged by insecurity, every message from the leader should reflect a ruthless determination to stamp out crime and give the fear-wracked populace a new lease on life. How much can we trust Tinubu?
The power to tell convicted offenders “Go and sin no more” before they have served their complete sentences is at the absolute discretion of the president. But that absolute discretion must be exercised in good faith. Political discretion is a test of a sense of responsibility. A president must always act in the country’s best interest; otherwise, he loses moral authority to govern. When Tinubu grants pardons to murderers, kidnappers, and drug dealers, he doesn’t just expose the country to a few recidivism-prone criminals; he lowers the bar. He tilts the scale in favour of lawlessness.
There are good reasons for clemency: to decongest the prisons, to reward exemplary behaviour by an inmate, to realise potential benefits for society which the commuted sentence or pardon might bring. Tinubu adduced some of these reasons in pardoning the murderer. But there are also reasons why there is a prescription of long prison sentences and the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. One of the most important reasons is public safety. In the exercise of his discretionary powers, did Tinubu bother about public safety?
Since Tinubu pardoned murderers, kidnappers, and drug dealers, people have started to scrutinise Tinubu’s sense of morality. A woman murdered her husband in cold blood. She had tried killing him thrice but was stopped by relatives. She went ahead and killed him. Her mental faculties were intact. All the courts in the land found her guilty and decided she was no longer fit to live amongst humans. After a few years in prison, Tinubu becomes president and pardons her. Tinubu doesn’t commute her sentence. He doesn’t just set her free. He wipes clean her criminal records. Tinubu’s pretext is that the woman has become demure in prison and that the victim’s family pleaded on her behalf. Is this poor judgment or something more sinister?
Tinubu knows murder isn’t a family affair. It’s a grave offence against society. To release a cold-blooded husband-murderer back into circulation because her husband’s family pleaded is preposterous. Everybody perhaps deserves a second chance. But this woman, who, without a flicker of compunction, slaughtered her husband, may now come in contact with people’s children playing noisily in the corridors of a hotel.
She will roam the society without the tag, people stepping on her toes oblivious to the venom she had once unleashed. Society has to take this risk because her influential family members probably have some access to the president. Tinubu said the plight of her children weighed heavily on the decision. But nobody has proved a greater threat to her children than her. Tinubu didn’t need to bruise the sensibilities of the public. She is a living threat to her children. She killed their father and denied them their father.
Following the public outrage against Tinubu’s unthinkable pardons, the mentor and uncle of the deceased husband spoke up. A former minister of the Federal Republic, he said Tinubu didn’t consult the family of the murdered man but succumbed to the wishes of the family of the murderer. To counter the minister and save Tinubu from all-around condemnation, a haggard man, who seemed absent- minded, was brought in to face the press.
Claiming he was the father of the murdered man, he declared he had begged Tinubu to release his daughter-in-law so she could care for his grandchildren. Nothing about that man was convincing. The testimony of this so-called father was mowed down by other angry family members. They said the man was a deadbeat father who had absconded from family duties for decades and played no role in the deceased’s life but has now reappeared, possibly influenced, to play a role in the saga. The grave allegations against the man and the government are capable of making the stupid pardon become a fraudulent pardon.
If Tinubu was deceived into granting a pardon to a murderer, then that’s serious. But if he knowingly granted a cold-blooded murderer a pardon, then that’s unpardonable. Unfortunately, it appears Tinubu knew what he was doing. His morality seems suspect. Otherwise, why did he also pardon so many drug dealers? How could a man who forfeited hundreds of thousands of dollars of suspected drug money to the United States government not flee from all appearances of dalliance with drug trafficking?
Critics say the pardons reveal moral dissipation rather than mercy. Atiku said that a historical connection could not be avoided. His innuendo suggested Tinubu exhibited esprit de corps in his audacious pardon of drug barons. Since appointments to senior public offices are sometimes bought and sold in Nigeria, these pardons must be thoroughly scrutinised . The question will be whether some of the pardons were bought with money or favor?
Perhaps Tinubu needs moral lessons. Last year, the Osun governor pardoned a young man, Segun Olowookere—the only child of a widow. At 17 years in 2010, he had stolen eggs and chickens from a house in the village. The house belonged to a policeman. At the time of the theft, he had a cutlass and a dane gun in his hand. He was consequently convicted of armed robbery in 2014. But his family said if they had the thirty thousand naira demanded, the case wouldn’t have gone to trial.
By the time the larger public heard of the case through a podcast where the mother almost cried herself to death in 2024, Segun had spent 14 years in prison. The governor was as moved as the public. He pardoned Segun. The law deemed Segun an armed robber. Society felt Segun was no more than a petty thief and had overstayed in prison. People like Segun are the reason the prerogative of mercy was established. So the president can act on behalf of the people to do justified mercy. No bribe, no elite pull. Yet while Nigerian prisons are filled with poor people like Segun, Tinubu is seeking out drug dealers for pardon?
In Nigeria, most murders go unsolved. The country lacks the capacity for basic forensic investigations. And the criminal justice system is spectacularly porous. Therefore, every convicted murderer is a priceless instrument of deterrence. But you have to wonder how much the leaders care about this country. The nation is drug-infested. It used to be a transit hub. Now millions of our youths are drug addicts. Most of the drug barons in the country are beyond the reach of the law. They have become role models of get-rich-quick for the youth. So why rub salt in this injury? Why on earth did Tinubu grant clemency to drug dealers? Drug dealers were the highest beneficiaries of Tinubu’s mercy. How on earth, Nigeria!
If this is deception, as the Bello family’s fury suggests, it’s a failure of due diligence that shames the presidency. If it was deliberate —as the drug baron inclusions imply—it’s a fracture in moral authority that could haunt Tinubu. Either way, it begs the question: In a country where every pardon is a precedent, where are we now headed? Is the bar already too low to lift? Where does this leave our drug and sleaze stained reputation in the comity of nations?
Tinubu’s recent batch of pardons feels less like benevolence and more like a gamble with public faith. Time will tell if it was folly or fraud.
*Dr Egbujo is a commentator on public issues
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