The Power of Mercy and the Risks of Abuse
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, like his predecessors, has the constitutional right to grant clemency. This power is derived from Section 175 of the 1999 Constitution, which allows him to pardon convicts and commute their sentences. However, constitutional rights are not moral shields, and mercy must ennoble justice, not mock it.
The prerogative of mercy was designed to temper justice with compassion. Yet, in recent times, this power has been seen as cheapened by the pardons granted to murderers, drug traffickers, and other hardened criminals. Among the 175 beneficiaries of Tinubu’s pardon is Maryam Sanda, who was sentenced to death in 2020 for killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, in a fit of murderous fury.
This case captured the imagination of the nation because it symbolized both the collapse of domestic civility and the delicate hope that justice could still work in Nigeria. Now, Tinubu’s pardon threatens to turn that hope into scorn and righteous indignation.
Following fierce public backlash, the federal government clarified that no inmate has yet been released under the current Presidential Prerogative of Mercy exercise. Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi stated that the process “remains at the final administrative stage” and that it is still undergoing verification and review. This acknowledgment of bureaucratic pause is what has prompted this reflection. If the government is really reviewing the pardons, it still has time to salvage its moral standing. Once the releases occur, it will be too late to reverse the damage.
A Controversial Packaging of Mercy
The most exasperating aspect of the exercise is how it was packaged. When news broke that Maryam Sanda was among those granted clemency, the outrage was instantaneous. To soften the blow, a press conference was convened, and Bilyaminu Bello’s biological father, Ahmed Bello Isa, who had been entirely absent from his son’s life, was suddenly thrust before cameras to claim credit for Sanda’s release.
Reading from what appeared to be a prepared statement, he said he had sought the pardon because he wanted his grandchildren to have the benefit of growing up with their mother. The wealthy and well-connected father of Maryam Sanda, who appeared to have engineered the news conference, sat beside the deadbeat father and enjoyed the theater.
Meanwhile, the family that had adopted, nurtured, educated, and buried Bilyaminu Bello watched in shock and disempowering rage. They said the pardon reopened old wounds and compounded their grief with humiliation.
Forgiveness is virtuous only when it is voluntarily given. It can never be coerced or legislated. The spectacle of the biological father’s news conference was designed to sanitize the gross injustice of Maryam Sanda’s unmerited pardon and to launder the privilege of her parents through a choreographed display of mawkish sentimentality. But it succeeded only in deepening public disgust.
The Ethical Dilemma of Mercy
No one disputes that mercy has a place in governance. A humane system recognizes remorse and rehabilitation. But presidential pardon must be the culmination of justice, not its subversion. When the powerful can engineer clemency for their own, while the poor rot in overcrowded prisons for petty theft, mercy becomes a weapon of inequality.
If the rationale for the pardons is “good conduct,” how was that measured for an insensate, blood-soaked murderer like Maryam Sanda who was sentenced only five years ago? Where is the proof of her repentance, the evidence of her rehabilitation, the testimony of those hurt by her actions?
Were the adoptive parents of Bilyaminu Bello even consulted? It’s obvious they were not. The public statement signed by Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed on behalf of the family calling the pardon “the worst possible injustice any family could be made to go through” is all the proof you need.
“To have Maryam Sanda walk the face of the earth again, free from any blemish for her heinous crime as if she had merely squashed an ant, is the worst possible injustice any family could be made to go through for a loved one,” the statement said.
A Precedent Set for Inequality
The presidency’s statement that many pardoned inmates had learned trades or earned degrees in custody is neither here nor there. Drug barons can run classroom workshops, and murderers can earn degrees, but that does not erase their crimes. It doesn’t give justice to the victims of their transgressions.
The integrity of justice does not lie in whether convicts can read the Bible, recite the Qur’an or weld steel. It lies in whether the law retains meaning after the verdict.
This is not, of course, the first time Nigerian presidents have abused the power of mercy. Past leaders have freed convicted looters, coup plotters, and cronies under the guise of national reconciliation. What is new, at least based on my recollection of past presidential pardons, is the raw, remorseless, I-dare-you brazenness of Tinubu’s.
The inclusion of notorious drug traffickers and violent offenders, even as ordinary Nigerians struggle daily with the terror of crime and narcotics abuse, communicates the message that crime pays if you have the right connection in high places.
A Call for Reform
If Tinubu insists on exercising this right, let him do so for prisoners of conscience, wrongly convicted individuals, and those who have served decades for non-violent offenses. It insults justice if it’s mostly for the wealthy and the well-connected who can summon ministers to plead their cause.
By including Maryam Sanda and other violent offenders, the Tinubu administration has set a perilous precedent. It invites every future convict with political or financial clout to expect similar treatment. It signals to judges that their sentences can be casually undone, and to prosecutors that their diligence is futile.
Most dangerously, it erodes public faith in the rule of law. Once people believe justice is negotiable, they seek it elsewhere, often in violence or vigilantism. Nigeria’s fragile social fabric cannot afford that descent.
The Attorney-General’s statement that the list is still “under review” offers the president a chance to rethink. He can still remove names that discredit the exercise and reinforce public confidence by publishing transparent criteria for eligibility.
He can also seize this moment to reform the clemency process itself. The Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy must include civil-society representatives, victim-advocacy groups and credible clergy.
If this government truly values mercy, let it show compassion to the countless awaiting-trial inmates languishing without verdicts, some jailed longer than the sentences for their alleged crimes. Mercy belongs not in freeing the privileged guilty but in rescuing the forgotten innocent.
Every pardon sends a message. The absolution of Maryam Sanda tells Nigerians that if you are the scion of a powerful and wealthy family, you can murder and get away with it.
True mercy cannot be scripted, televised or bartered for lineage. Tinubu’s mass clemency, if implemented as announced, will deepen Nigeria’s moral anemia.
The president should pause the process, strike out the names that insult justice, and remember that mercy divorced from morality is corruption. For once, let power bow before principle.
