Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has faulted the recent presidential pardon granted to some convicts by President Bola Tinubu in exercise of his power of prerogative of mercy, describing the exercise as a “colossal embarrassment” tainted by Illegalities and constitutional errors.
Speaking on ARISE News Channel’s ‘The Morning Show’ on Friday, Falana said the controversial state pardon exercise once again exposed flaws in the nation’s justice administration and disregard for constitutional limits.
“It is not the first time that the exercise has been mishandled, but this time around, the country was exposed to odium, and there was no basis for it,” Falana said.
The legal luminary criticised the process that led to the inclusion of undeserving individuals on the clemency list, citing cases where persons recently convicted for corruption were granted pardon.
“Those who were not deserving of pardon were recommended,” he stated. “Take one for instance—the EFCC had prosecuted a guy for 11 years, he was convicted in April this year and sentenced to terms of imprisonment, yet his name was on that list.”
Falana further accused the Federal Government of breaching the Constitution by including individuals convicted under state laws in a federal pardon list.
“Those who were prosecuted under state laws found their way, I mean, they were put on the list. By virtue of Section 212 of the Constitution, only the governor of a state can pardon people convicted for stealing, obtaining by false pretences, murder, or culpable homicide, but all those names were there,” he explained.
He described the presidency’s decision to review and reduce the original list from 175 names to about 84—as inadequate, insisting that the process had already embarrassed the country.
“It is not enough to say we have reviewed the list, we now want to reduce 175 names to 84 and begin to clap for the government,” Falana said. “The government owes itself a duty to ensure that such a colossal embarrassment does not occur again.”
He called on the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to publicly apologise to Nigerians, saying that was the least expected after the controversy.
“The very least the Attorney General can do is to apologise. It is not enough to say, ‘oh, we are going to review the list or we have now reviewed the list’—no, it is not done that way,” he declared.
The recent presidential pardon had sparked yet another controversy earlier in the week after President Bola Tinubu reviewed the pardon he earlier granted to 175 convicts, reducing the list to about 84.
Recall that Tinubu had previously granted pardon to about 175 people, including a pre-independence nationalist, drug offenders, murderers, among other convicts. That pardon was condemned by many Nigerians forcing the administration to conduct a review.
“Following consultations with the Council of State and public opinion on the matter, the President directed a further review of the initially approved list for consideration in furtherance of the President’s discretionary powers under Section 175(1)(&(2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
“Consequently, certain persons convicted of serious crimes such as kidnapping, drug-related offences, human trafficking, fraud, unlawful possession of firearms/arms dealing, etc, were deleted from the list. Others who had been hitherto pardoned in the old list had their sentences commuted,” Presidential media aide, Bayo Onanuga, had wrote.
