In a season when Nigeria is gasping under the weight of insecurity, drug scourge, corruption, and economic rot, President Bola Tinubu’s latest act of clemency has opened a Pandora’s box of moral questions. The presidential pardon granted to 175 convicts, many of whom were jailed for grievous crimes, has become a national talking point — one that strikes at the very heart of justice and accountability.
The figures tell a story more haunting than the press statement admits. According to data released by StatiSense, nearly one-third of those pardoned were convicted for drug offences, while another quarter had their hands in illegal mining. Together, these two groups represent over half of those granted mercy. One might ask: what message does this send in a nation already battling the menace of narcotics and the plundering of its mineral wealth?
This is not mercy in its purest form; it is mercy wearing the robe of contradiction. When a government forgives those who helped drain the nation’s veins through unlawful mining, it risks appearing as an accomplice in its own bleeding. When it grants clemency to drug traffickers at a time when young Nigerians are dying in alleys and ghettos from substance abuse, it tells the world that crime, if committed with finesse, can be washed clean by the stroke of a presidential pen.
Justice, they say, must not only be done but must be seen to be done. Yet, in this case, justice seems to have been buried under political expediency and wrapped in the fine linen of “rehabilitation.” The Presidency spoke glowingly of correction and compassion, but Nigerians remember too well that behind many of these crimes lie victims whose lives will never be the same. Who speaks for them when the gates of clemency swing open?
The inclusion of figures such as Farouk Lawan and Maryam Sanda only deepens the disquiet. Lawan’s name is synonymous with the fuel subsidy scandal that stained Nigeria’s public service. Sanda’s crime was not a mistake but a deliberate act of homicide. While remorse may be human, forgiveness by the state should not come so cheap. To pardon those who committed crimes of this magnitude is to make justice look like a toy in the hands of politicians.
Indeed, the government argues that this gesture mirrors its belief in second chances. But when those chances are extended to the powerful and the connected, it ceases to be compassion — it becomes selective redemption. For how many poor petty thieves, languishing in forgotten cells for stealing a loaf of bread, made that sacred list?
The statistics reveal more than numbers; they expose priorities. About 29 percent of those pardoned were drug offenders, 24 percent were illegal miners, and 12 percent were corrupt officials. In contrast, only a fraction were victims of controversial convictions. The spirit of forgiveness should not become a hiding place for moral compromise. Mercy should heal, not wound the conscience of a nation.
This exercise, veiled as reformist and humanitarian, seems to have been driven by political undertones rather than pure justice. It is no secret that as 2027 approaches, every gesture is measured in electoral weight. To the discerning, this pardon looks less like a balm of mercy and more like a bait of politics — a bid to curry favor from various interest blocs and historical sympathizers.
The inclusion of posthumous pardons for nationalists like Ken Saro-Wiwa and Herbert Macaulay is commendable, but it also feels like a sugar coating on a bitter pill. It is a clever attempt to cloak a controversial act with nostalgia and patriotism. The government appears to have mixed history with hypocrisy, hoping the sweetness of the past will drown the bitterness of the present.
If clemency is truly a virtue, it must walk hand in hand with accountability. To pardon without reforming the justice system is like pouring water into a basket. The same system that convicts today can be manipulated tomorrow. And when leadership plays judge, jury, and redeemer, the line between justice and favoritism becomes dangerously blurred.
Nigeria’s prisons are overflowing with the poor and voiceless — people who committed lesser crimes out of desperation. Yet, it is the high and mighty, the influential and well-connected, who often find their names on the scrolls of mercy. That is not justice; it is privilege dressed as compassion.
The Presidency may celebrate this as a milestone in restorative justice, but to the common Nigerian, it feels like another episode of state-sponsored irony. Mercy must not mock justice; compassion must not crucify truth. A nation cannot claim to fight corruption on one hand and embrace its offspring on the other.
If this act of clemency was meant to heal, it has instead reopened the wounds of distrust between the rulers and the ruled. For now, Nigerians are left to wonder: when will justice cease to wear the mask of politics? When will mercy be guided not by status or sentiment, but by the true spirit of fairness?
Until then, this pardon remains not an emblem of compassion, but a riddle wrapped in irony — a gesture that raises more questions than it answers, and a reminder that in the theatre of Nigerian politics, mercy too has become a performance.
Stanley Ugagbe can be reached via stanleyakomeno@gmail.com
