This pardon is ridiculous

Seven Nigerians who benefited from the presidential pardon include three former military officers namely: the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’adua; the former Chief of General Staff Lt. General Oladipo Diya as well as the Late Major General Abdulkareem Adisa, a former minister of works. The three of them were convicted by Special Military Tribunals […]

Seven Nigerians who benefited from the presidential pardon include three former military officers namely: the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’adua; the former Chief of General Staff Lt. General Oladipo Diya as well as the Late Major General Abdulkareem Adisa, a former minister of works. The three of them were convicted by Special Military Tribunals for alleged coup attempts against the military regime of late General Sani Abacha. Others are Alhaji Shettima Bulama, a former Bank of the North managing director who was convicted for fraud; ex-major Bello Magaji; Alhaji Mohammed Lima Biyu; and former Bayelsa state governor Chief D. S. P Alamieyeseigha who was convicted for fraud when President Goodluck was serving under him as his deputy governor.
Pardon is an offer that is universally celebrated each time it is received. It is celebrated because beneficiaries are usually not too certain of when it will come and sometimes doubt if it will ever come. Unfortunately, the recent presidential pardon granted by President Jonathan to seven persons defied this conventional law as not much of commendation has been heard in favour of the “offer”; signifying its infamy. My colleague, Jideofor Adibe (Ph.D), who writes the Thursday column for the Daily Trust Newspaper seems for now to be alone in finding justifications for the most controversial presidential pardon. Dr Jideofor is interrogating Nigerians if they would have done otherwise if they were in Jonathan’s position; which is overwhelmingly considered as one most-unpopular action of the Jonathan administration.
Nigerians and even observers from the international community have described the pardon in various ways. The Speaker of the House of Representatives said “it is ill-timed”. Hakeem Baba Ahmed, a retired public servant and now a public commentator remarked that it is “an embarrassment to the nation which signifies serious disconnect between the political institution and the public service”. A Lagos-based lawyer and activist, Bamidele Aturu described the pardon as “official jailbreak”. The US Embassy in Nigeria added its voice to the choir of condemnation by describing the pardon granted Alamieyeseigha and Bulama as “a setback in the fight against corruption”. Others also described the pardon as “ill-advised”, “misplaced”; “a deep disappointment”; etc.
The very controversial nature of the presidential pardon in question explains the massive negative reactions from Nigerians. The pardon is contraband because the list was padded with some names that should never have been there but were rather strangely smuggled in. Seeing Alamieyeseigha’s name on the list strongly suggests, as insinuated by many Nigerians, that the entire package of the pardon is for his sake. If the pardon were not chiefly intended for Alamieyeseigha, why was the pardon preceded by the visit of a group of elders from Bayelsa state to Mr. President at the presidential villa?
The list is also dubious as it includes names of those who have already been pardoned by the regime of General AbdulSalam Abubakar in a 1998/1999 official document. This raises the question of why President Jonathan should include the names of Late General Shehu Musa Yar’adua and the Late General AbdulKareem Adisa. Is it that government does not keep proper records or was that meant to serve an ulterior motive? Granting pardons to same persons twice sounds ridiculous; more so that their names were joined with some contentious characters in the same “offer”.
Alamieyeseigha is believed to be the most controversial individual whose name more than any other person on the list, perhaps, accounts for very unpopular nature of the pardon which presidency officials prefer to call clemency; as if there is a semantic difference between “a week” and “seven days”. Before his conviction on corruption charges, Alamieyeseigha was impeached by the Bayelsa State House of assembly. Before then also, he was detained in the UK for money laundry offences. While standing trial at a British court, Alamieyeseigha jumped bail and escaped to Nigeria where criminals are celebrated; an act that dented Nigeria’s image in the eyes of the international community.
On the list of those pardoned is also ex-Major Bello Magaji who was convicted and sentenced to five years jail term for sodomy by a military court in 1996. Magaji was a military officer attached to the Lagos Garison command who, according to media reports obtained from court records, was convicted for serial homosexual intercourse with four students of the Army Cantonment Boys Secondary School in Ojo Cantonment, Lagos. We wonder what the name of a homosexual is doing on the list. Is pardon the best way to discourage the illicit act?
If late Shehu Musa Yar’adua and Abdulkareem Adisa were granted presidential pardon post-humously, we wonder what harm it would do to Nigeria and Nigerians if President Jonathan had deferred the pardon for Alamieyeseigha and other controversial figures on the list to a much later time long enough to deter other public officers from engaging in similar abuse of public office. What does it cost Nigeria if the pardon for the controversial characters were never granted or granted but post-humously? May Allah (SWT) guide Mr. President and his kitchen-cabinet advisers to see the fate of the Nigerian nation as a trust placed by God in their hands, amin.