President Tinubu’s preference for pardoning drug barons, economy looters and money launderers remain suspicious.
Probably, it would be fair to start this discussion by admitting that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sometimes – not often at all anyway, listens to what the Nigerian people rage about, and he pauses for a while before launching forward again. In, and at such endeavours, he had managed to retract or redesign some errors the people might have cried about.
He does the above more than reversing totally his steps in policy introduction or, and implementation. What this tells us is nothing but the vulnerability of the man – Bola Tinubu. It might as well be for this character of human frailty that he pronounces his intentions on what he wants to do sometimes and bulldozes his way through.
Let us move to the above-mentioned topic – albeit “Presidential pardon list of ambiguous opprobrium going for review”.
On October 11, 2025, the presidency released a list of the President’s Prerogative of Mercy, containing 147 names of people that President Tinubu has chosen to “show mercy upon”. In exercising that prerogative right – which is his constitutional right to exercise anyway, he pardoned many Nigerians of their convicted crimes, through the instrumentality of Prerogative of Mercy.
Most of the people the president pardoned were most-ferocious criminals that committed top-nosh atrocities against the Nigerian State – arrested and passed through thorough investigations in the hands of our security agencies, before being sentenced to jail terms by the Nigerian Judiciary.
These were top-most drug barons, sophisticated Sea pirates, classical terrorists, notorious money launderers, world-acclaimed gunrunners, unrepentant murderers, demonic illegal miners, a leading professional traitor that invaded the armoury of the Nigerian Military; carted away sophisticated heavy military equipment and delivered same to terrorists [nebulously called Boko Haram fighters] in the North-East region of Nigeria,
In fact, there are few of the pardons that border the theatre of dramatic comic. Mentioning of one might suffice for the purpose of icing the cake of this discussion.
President Bola Tinubu found it most convenient, within his merciful heart, to grant Pardon to a Nigerian iconic political activist, in the person of the great Sir Herbert Macaulay. Many regarded this particular action of pardon as the naked dramatic dance of the mad man in the market square, for two reasons.
One, Sir Herbert Macaulay played his part for Nigeria and died in Kano – still while leading campaign for the Nigerian trajectory, on May 7, 1946. The date of death of this icon shows that he passed on many years before Ahmed Bola Tinubu was born.
And two, the whole world knew then that Sir Herbert Macaulay was maliciously and arbitrarily banned from public office for misappropriation of funds, and sentenced by FOREIGNERS, all in trumped up charges, in 1913, a time that Nigeria was not in existence – remember that Nigeria was put together and amalgamated in 1914, by the British colonialists.
It could have only remains within the reign of absurdity for that celebrated icon to come into consideration of clemency in Nigeria’s 2025.
The full list of the presidential pardon, which was released from the Presidency on Saturday, October 11, 2025, to Nigerians, was put together by the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy, chaired by the Attorney-General of Nigeria – Chief Lateef Fagbemi [SAN]. It means that the list of shame was compiled by a committee chaired by the Nigerian Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Lateef Fagbemi. Let us try not to forget this sacrosanct fact please, and for a reason we shall be coming to in a jiffy.
Nigerian Attorney General – Lateef Fagbemi, explains the disgraceful presidential list with jargons that can only be appreciated by the uninitiated.
Then on this past Thursday, October 16, 2025, this same Attorney-General of Nigeria told Nigerians that “the Presidential Prerogative of Mercy recently announced by the President was still under review and had not been finalised”. Listen to what he said below:
“The process remains at the final administrative stage, which includes a standard review to ensure that all names and recommendations fully comply with established legal and procedural requirements before any instrument of release is issued.”
“This stage affords an opportunity for a final review of the list for remedial purposes, if necessary, before the instrument is forwarded to the Controller-General of Corrections for necessary action. This verification process is part of the standard protocol and reflects the government’s commitment to transparency and due diligence,” the AGF said.
He further “appreciated the public’s vigilance and constructive feedback, describing it as a sign of Nigerians’ deep concern for justice and good governance”, before concluding that “there is no delay in the process; it is simply following the law to the letter to ensure that only that duly qualified benefit from the President’s mercy. As soon as all legal and procedural checks are concluded, the public will be duly informed. The rule of law does not rush; it ensures fairness.”
Without allowing the Attorney-General of Nigeria’s triviality of a show of shame that has taken us – Nigerians, to the open market square of the world Comity of nation, we need to place it on record the percentage distribution of the Pardon List, for posterity’s information.
Below is the percentage distribution of the Presidential Pardon, for our archives, please
- Drugs – 29.2%
- Unlawful mining – 24.0%
- Homicide – 13.5%
- Fraud/Corruption – 12.3%
- Hijacking – 5.8%
- Firearms – 2.3%
- Robbery/Theft – 2.3%
- Kidnapping – 1.8%
- Human Trafficking – 1.8%
- Others – 5.8%
The question that confronts all of us, now is this:
Of what benefit shall the review of the perfidious Pardon List be to us in one hand, and to the larger community of the world, in the other hand? Has those who are very dear to the heart of our President, that he need to show mercy, not been made known to the whole world already?
This list of shame, either withdrawn for review, or not, shall remain one colossus catastrophe on how the Nigerian leadership cookie crumbles.
Not the end yet!
Godwin Etakibuebu; a Veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.
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This is indeed catastrophic, we can only continue to pray and work against this tyranny