Maryam Sanda: When the prerogative of mercy becomes injustice

Occasionally, those in a position of power make the wrong decisions that, instead of demonstrating strength or other admirable virtues, often achieve the opposite. President Bola Tinubu’s decision to pardon some 175 Nigerians for various offences has to be one of those dreadful decisions that should not have been taken. This decision, which was based […]

Occasionally, those in a position of power make the wrong decisions that, instead of demonstrating strength or other admirable virtues, often achieve the opposite. President Bola Tinubu’s decision to pardon some 175 Nigerians for various offences has to be one of those dreadful decisions that should not have been taken.

This decision, which was based on the recommendation of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy, led by Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi, has rightly stirred a lot of furore in the country because of the kind of message it is sending.

While the prerogative of mercy is, well, the prerogative of the president, its application is meant to address injustices—systemic or social—not entrench them. So, while the pardon issued to the founding father of Nigerian nationalism, Herbert MacCauley (verify offence), and the Ogoni Nine might fall in the category of the latter, to say that the gesture is tainted by the inclusion of a convicted murderer like Maryam Sanda would be an understatement. Tainted, all of a sudden, seems too flimsy to append to this case. One can say that this pardon for Ms Sanda and many others on the list is an abuse of the justice system.

For one, Maryam’s murder of her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, in 2017 was premeditated. She made at least two attempts to carry out the act, swore that she would, and when she finally succeeded in inflicting mortal wounds on him, instead of showing remorse or even making sincere efforts to get help for her victim, she called in her family to help clean up the murder scene, tamper with evidence, and orchestrate a miscarriage of justice. Throughout the trial period, she lied about the facts of what happened, used her considerable family influence and connections to pressure the judge to prejudice the outcome of the trial in her favour. It was both brazen and ugly to watch, and at the end of the trial, many Nigerians were satisfied with the court’s ruling, which was upheld on appeal.

Her conviction and sentencing were messages. They were the appropriate counter to that oft-repeated mantra by those who habitually say, “I will kill you, and nothing will happen.” That ruling said otherwise; it made it unequivocal that you may be powerful, you may succeed in committing murder, but you cannot escape the long arms of the law and the gavel of justice.

The presidential pardons unravelled that and years of justice and essentially reinforce that mantra: that you can, in fact, murder someone and nothing will happen. Since her conviction in 2020, Maryam Sanda had spent a total of six years and eight months in prison at the Suleja Medium Security Custodial Centre. She was scheduled for a date with the hangman, according to the law. Yet, on account of being a “model inmate who showed deep remorse, good behaviour, and personal transformation,” according to Justice Fagbemi’s committee, she was recommended for full clemency. Not even a commutation of her death sentence, but full clemency. This means she could be out at the next resident shindig, dancing shaku shaku soon. This is for culpable homicide, not manslaughter, for a murder that the judges found to be “deliberate and premeditated.”

The whole thing doesn’t only feel wrong; it is wrong. It tramples the very notion of a sense of justice essential in maintaining social order. How the presidency failed to see this, or chose to ignore it and its social implications in the discussion leading to the issuance of the pardon, is a massive oversight, if one can categorise it as an oversight.

The statement by Bilyaminu’s family, which decided not to leverage the media blitz against Ms Sanda in the aftermath of her heinous crime, speaks respectfully of their objection to this pardon. It is a rare kind of grace that the Sanda family did not exhibit at any point. The Sandas went as far as excavating Bilyaminu’s biological father, who reportedly was never involved in the victim’s life from his birth, upbringing, his two marriages, and his eventual murder and the aftermath, to spew some gibberish about forgiving Ms Sanda so she could raise his grandchildren, whom he had never cared for prior. The man who allegedly betrayed Bilyaminu from the moment his mother died at his birth suddenly is flexing a power to forgive he had no business wielding. In that, there is something to note.

In many ways, Bilyaminu’s fate personifies the plight of Nigerians as a whole. The neglect he suffered from his biological father mirrors the neglect Nigerians suffer from their leadership. The manner in which his wife, his hope for happiness in life, dispatched him mirrors again how the country disposes of Nigerians with minimal fuss. The muscle flexing that followed his death mirrors what plays out in the country every day, how the people are easily oppressed and systems are strong-armed to serve the interests of certain privileged persons. And this final posthumous stab in the back for good measure by his father mirrors how often those who should fight for us turn around to garrot us if it profits them. It is not dissimilar to the presidential clemency for Ms Sanda.

More than half the names on that list (52%) received general clemency. These included Maryam Sanda, of course, and the likes of former lawmaker Faruk Lawal (who was much admired by Nigerians as a people’s champion but was eventually convicted for corruption). Others, like Professor Magaji Garba, a former vice-chancellor convicted for fraud involving false pretence and forgery, had their sentences commuted. At least 8.6% of the names on the list were convicted for fraud, bribery, or corruption, while another 14.3% were for drug-related offences, while only three persons, or 1.7%, were posthumous.

\While arguments can be made for the clemency granted to figures like Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine, or even Herbert MacCauley, the obvious attempts to sneak the names of people like Maryam Sanda beneath the radar failed woefully and detracted from what should have been a noble gesture.

Whatever the presidential committee put on Tinubu’s table and the president’s endorsement of it has sullied not just the committee, the president, and the president’s advisers, but also the idea of justice in the country has been dealt a mortal blow, just as Bilyaminu’s father did to his son’s ghost when he sat down for that ill-advised press conference.

In a time like this, it is worth remembering the wise words of Martin Luther King, who proclaimed that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This injustice done to Bilyaminu Bello is an injustice to all Nigerians. It is only the latest in series of habitual social and systemic injustices being metted out daily.

Today, like that night of November 19, 2017, when Bilyaminu Bello lay bleeding in his Maitama home, justice in Nigeria lies bleeding. Will those who have wounded it rally to save it, or would they, as Maryam Sanda did that night, watch the blood drain out of it and then proceed to smash the hookah bottle to doctor the crime scene?