Much ado about state pardons

PREROGATIVE of mercy and state pardons are not new in politics and public administration. Since Nigeria gained independence in 1960, state pardon has been a powerful instrument used by the successive regimes and ruling cliques to manage relationships with their former friends who have become foes or their former foes who have either become friends or are no longer threats.

A cursory glance at the pattern of its use in Nigeria confirms the old saying that in politics there are no permanent enemies or friends but only permanent interests. Your worst enemy could suddenly become your best friend and your best friend your worst enemy. Cases abound to illustrate this.

In 1962, the leader of the Action Group (AG), Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was tried and convicted for treasonable felonies, along with some of his high ranking lieutenants such as Alhaji Lateef Jakande. They were jailed, while some of them, such as Dr. Sam Ikoku, escaped into exile.

When the military struck in January 1966 Awolowo applied for state pardon, which General Aguiyi-Ironsi granted on July 27th, two days before he was assassinated by a group of officers led by his aide, Theophilus Danjuma in Ibadan. Awolowo was soon to become the Finance Minister and Vice Chairman of the Executive Council under General Yakubu Gowon, when the civil war was in high gear. Such is the power of state pardon, especially when granted unconditionally. It has the effect of cleaning the person of the stigma or socio-political disabilities imposed by conviction for a political or criminal offence.

Much later, series of famous state pardons took place. Two of them concerned the major protagonists of the civil war: General Yakubu Gowon and Col. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Ojukwu was dismissed from the Nigerian Army for leading the secession attempt. Gowon, on the other hand, was stripped of his military rank by the regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo in 1976 for his alleged role in the Lt Col. BS Dimka-led coup attempt whereby General Murtala Mohammed was assassinated. He was treated as an accessory to the offence.

Gowon escaped to London under the protection of the Queen of England. There he enrolled at the University of Warwick and acquired PhD in Political Science. Meanwhile, Ojukwu had gone into exile in Yamoussoukro, the hometown of President Houphouet Boigny of Ivory Coast.
Both former enemies were granted unconditional state pardon by President Shehu Shagari. With their newfound freedom, both men tried their hands unsuccessfully in contests for the presidency.On the one hand, Gowon’s name was filed in the 1992 Option A4 presidential primaries of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in Zaria. He was defeated by former President Shagari’s personal physician, Dr. Dalhatu Sarki Tafida.
Ojukwu, on the other hand, became the leader and presidential candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the first decade of Nigeria’s return to civil rule. He had misadventured shortly after his return from exile by plunging headlong into a senatorial race. His party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had joined forces with the opposition Nigerian People’s Party (NPP) to ensure that loud mouthed medical doctor, Edwin Onwudiwe, defeated him to stop him from coming to the senate so soon after being pardoned.

Perhaps, the most dramatic and orchestrated of all was the pardon granted General Olusegun Obasanjo and his former Deputy, the late Major General Shehu Yar’ Adua on September 30th 1998 but the gazette was backdated to July 14th 1998. With this, Obasanjo was freed from his conviction for coup plotting against the regime of the late General Sani Abacha. He was later sponsored for the presidency and ruled Nigeria for eight years. Weeks into his office as president, Obasanjo also applied presidential pardon on the dethroned Speaker of the House of Reps, Salisu Buhari, who was forced to resign after his certificate forgery scandal blew open.

The dust that President Goodluck Jonathan’s pardon for his former boss, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and other raised was understandable. In the first place, Shehu Yar’ Adua and others implicated in the coup attempts on the Abacha regime, had already been pardoned by the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime. Could it be that Aso Villa does not maintain records to know this? Do we have a Presidency that does not even know its own history?

Secondly, the corruption cases of Alamieyeseigha and former Managing Director of the Bank of the North, Shettima Bulama, for which they were jailed, were very widely celebrated. Alamieyeseigha was arrested in London with looted funds but granted bail. He jumped bail, disguised as a woman and returned to Nigeria only for former President Obasanjo to unleash the Nuhu Ribadu-led EFCC on him. He was subsequently impeached, tried, found guilty and jailed. He served his jailed term and had many of his property confiscated.

The President’s apologists have held that even former US President Richard Nixon was pardoned and later given a decent presidential burial. They also argue that the President fully complied with Section 175 of the Constitution, which grants him the power to invoke the Prerogative of Mercy on “any person” upon the “advice” the Council of State. Therefore, he violated no law nor did anything that is not regularly done even in the most advanced of democracies.

However, we are talking about a country deeply mired in corruption, and an administration that increasingly gives an impression it is not perturbed by the perception that it is very indulgent of people with flawed character or questionable records in public service. It is certainly not good for the image of the regime and the country.

This brings to mind a statement that former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, made boldly before television cameras when he was convicted for stealing money and property worth 16 billion naira. As he boarded the “Black Maria” truck to be whisked off to prison, he said confidently: “I shall bounce back”!

Alams has bounced back. Who says it does not matter where a president comes from?


By Ochereome Nnanna