Beyond the rhetoric of cancelling state pardon

THE constitutional amendment suggested by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to exclude corrupt leaders from presidential pardon could be a major step in the fight against endemic corruption. It deserves the support of all.

It must not, however, follow in President Muhammadu Buhari’s footsteps. In 2015, the ex-president unveiled a three-pronged mantra – fighting corruption, ending insecurity, and fixing the economy. It was a mere political slogan.

It seems Nigeria is back to the same moment under President Bola Tinubu. During a one-day anti-corruption roundtable organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission in Abuja, and attended by the 36 state AGs and Commissioners for Justice, Fagbemi said that “in our next constitutional amendment, matters of corruption should be excluded from the prerogative of mercy. This is the only way we can progress.” This sounds logical.

The indulgence of corrupt leaders has been largely responsible for Nigeria’s cyclical political, social, and economic movement since 1999. Having been made in the right setting and before the appropriate audience because the President and the governors exercise the prerogative of mercy, the proposal should set the tone for the desired constitutional amendment and seamless implementation.
The prerogative of mercy is a constitutional function vested in the President and the governors in sections 175 and 212 respectively. There, the President and the governors reserve the right to grant pardon to people convicted of “any offence.” For a country struggling with democracy and good governance, this clause is a direct invitation to abuse.

In Nigeria’s captured democracy, state pardon is a cancer that must be deleted from the polity to grant it good health.

Indeed, Nigerian leaders have been reckless in the exercise of this unwieldy privilege. Controversial state pardons for corrupt leaders are as old as the Fourth Republic. Its effects are telling for the 25-year-old democracy.
In 1999, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Salisu Buhari, was convicted for age falsification and certificate forgery but was pardoned by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000. In 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan pardoned a former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who was convicted at home after losing his immunity. He had escaped from London to avoid answering corruption charges in that country.
This presidential indiscretion puts Nigeria in international disrepute. In 2022, Buhari, who vowed to fight corruption, granted pardon to a former governor of Plateau, Joshua Dariye, and his Taraba counterpart, Jolly Nyame, who were serving jail terms for corruption.

The judiciary makes questionable pronouncements, which ends up protecting corrupt leaders. In 2008, a former governor secured a perpetual injunction from a Federal High Court, restraining the EFCC or any state or non-state actor from investigating his tenure as governor from 1999-2007 or arresting or prosecuting him.

This judgement is dubious, an injunction against democracy. Nigeria suffered image bashing and a significant drop in the corruption rating of Transparency International because of these presidential and judicial handouts. This is unacceptable.

State pardon wipes off the stain of offence and conviction and allows the soiled beneficiary back into society with the full privileges of citizenship, especially vying for the highest political office in the land, if he so desires.

State pardon for corrupt leaders is a political, economic, and reputational albatross and a messy act of privilege that undermines the political system, compromises democracy, hobbles good governance, and diminishes deterrence value. The quality of this kind of presidential mercy is “stained” and should be excised from the Constitution.

Granting state pardon to corrupt leaders is tacit approval of their crime, a coup against the people, good governance, and the fight against corruption.
This time, it should go beyond empty rhetoric.