Mercy Without Justice: Tinubu’s Pardons and the Erosion of Nigeria’s Justice System

President Bola Tinubu’s latest exercise of presidential mercy has landed like a political shockwave in a country already strained by insecurity, economic decline, and institutional decay. On Saturday, the Presidency released a list of 175 convicts and former convicts granted pardon or clemency. Among them are drug traffickers, illegal miners, white-collar offenders, kidnappers, murderers, and human traffickers.  Framed as an act of justice, rehabilitation, and correcting historical wrongs, the nation’s collective reaction has been disbelief, anger, and fear – because what kind of justice system releases individuals convicted of capital offences back into a society struggling to hold itself together?

The numbers themselves read like satire. Of the 175 pardoned, forty percent were convicted for drug-related crimes, thirty-four percent for illegal mining, seventeen percent for financial and white-collar crimes, and fourteen percent for violent or capital offences. A handful were involved in arms-related crimes, maritime hijacking, or human trafficking. These are not minor offences. They are crimes that rip at the social fabric of an already fraying state, but the Presidency insists the move reflects a commitment to justice tempered with mercy, especially for those who have shown remorse. It cited cases of prisoners who acquired vocational skills or degrees in the National Open University of Nigeria while incarcerated, as though moral character and education can retroactively undo violence or absolve corruption.

Among those “reformed” is Maryam Sanda, who was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging for stabbing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, to death in 2017— a case that transfixed the nation. Sanda’s death sentence was upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2020, but she now walks free after “exemplary conduct” during her six years in prison. Also pardoned were former lawmaker Farouk Lawan, who took bribes during his tenure, and Nwogu Peters, jailed for fraud. The Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy, chaired by Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi, recommended the releases. According to Bayo Onanuga, the President’s spokesman, the President merely followed their advice. But this bureaucratic detachment is precisely what alarms Nigerians: a president who governs on autopilot, delegating moral decisions of national consequence to committees, advisers, and handlers.

Granted, the constitution does give President Tinubu this power; Section 175 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) empowers the President to grant pardons or reduce sentences, after consulting the Council of State. The intention is noble – a safeguard against miscarriages of justice and a mechanism for national healing in times of political or social crisis, intended to correct judicial excess, not enable political convenience. In the hands of Nigerian presidents, however, this power has become something else entirely: a tool for appeasement, a means of lubricating networks of loyalty ahead of elections that constantly loom over Nigeria’s battered democracy.

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2000, pardoned journalists, activists, and even a reformed bank robber— people whose convictions had political overtones or were widely considered miscarriages of justice. It was Obasanjo’s way of turning the page on a military past and beginning a new democratic chapter, though even he faced backlash for including Salisu Buhari, the former Speaker convicted of forgery. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, more cautious, pardoned just one man – an armed robber who had spent twenty-two years on death row – citing Amnesty International’s concerns over the death penalty. Goodluck Jonathan, in contrast, leaned heavily on political loyalty, pardoning his alleged former benefactor, the disgraced Bayelsa governor D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha, alongside military officers accused of plotting a coup. The outrage was international; the US even hinted at sanctions in response. Muhammadu Buhari followed the same path, freeing corrupt former governors Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, despite open opposition from the EFCC and ICPC. By then, the presidential pardon had evolved from a humanitarian gesture to a cynical political ritual. What Tinubu has done, however, takes that ritual and inflates it into farce.

The scale and composition of Tinubu’s list are staggering. Never before has a Nigerian president freed so many people convicted of crimes so grave. Legal practitioners, prosecutors, and even judges are reportedly alarmed. Some of the pardoned convicts had stolen government weapons, kidnapped public officials, and attacked court officers. Several prosecutors have warned that many who risked their lives to put these convicts behind bars may now face retaliation. “If you are a state prosecutor, you must go through the list to see if the President released the person you spent several months, probably years, in court, trying to put away,” one lawyer wrote online. “If the person nurses a Sicilian predilection to vengeance, all the best to you.” His conclusion was damning: the list “betrays a lack of good judgment and poor exercise of discretion,” a “bastardisation of the prerogative of mercy.”

The Presidency’s defenders argue that Tinubu does not personally know the majority of these individuals and that the list came from recommendations by the Attorney-General and the Nigerian Correctional Service. But this defence collapses under its own weight. To plead ignorance is to confess negligence. The power of presidential pardon is not clerical, it is presidential. A head of state who cannot be trusted to review a list of dangerous convicts cannot credibly claim to be safeguarding the lives of 200 million citizens. It is his name, his judgment and his conscience that the Constitution places at the centre of mercy. Abdicating that responsibility reduces governance to a relay of excuses.

While President Tinubu extends mercy to drug barons and human traffickers, Nigeria’s prisons remain overcrowded with people far more deserving of compassion. More than seventy percent of inmates are awaiting trial – some for years – trapped in a judicial system collapsing under its own weight. Courtrooms are understaffed, case files gather dust, and many detainees remain behind bars simply because there are no vehicles or fuel to take them to court. Trials stall, restart, and disappear into bureaucratic fog, leaving the accused to serve sentences they were never given. If the Presidency were truly committed to rehabilitation or correcting judicial wrongs, the prerogative of mercy would begin there – with the forgotten men and women languishing in pre-trial detention, not those whose guilt has already been proven beyond doubt.

Critics of the presidency’s move, including Atiku Abubakar and the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) have called the gesture a mockery of justice, with Atiku drily suggesting that the president scrap the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), since he appears intent on undoing decades of their hard work. Opposition parties describe it as a national disgrace. The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has warned that the move paints Nigeria as a country “sympathising with drug dealers,” undermining its already strained international image. The European Union’s latest assessment of Nigeria’s democracy – grim and unsparing – now feels prophetic. If a president can, on a whim or under the pretext of rehabilitation, nullify the work of the courts, then the rule of law itself is on parole.

Even more troubling is the political subtext. Tinubu’s administration has become increasingly defined by personal loyalty rather than institutional integrity. His appointments, awards, and now his pardons seem to function as extensions of his political machine. There are whispers that some beneficiaries are old associates. The optics are damning: a president with a history of drug-related allegations freeing dozens of convicted drug offenders. The irony is so glaring it feels deliberate, almost mocking – a reminder of the distance between accountability and power in Nigeria.

The Attorney-General’s own proposal last year to amend the Constitution and block presidential pardons for corrupt leaders now reads like an act of foresight. It was an acknowledgment that mercy, in the wrong hands, becomes malice. But as of today, that amendment remains a mere suggestion, and Tinubu remains free to pardon as he wishes. The country, meanwhile, continues to unravel. Insecurity festers, the naira sinks, and an entire generation of young Nigerians prepares to vote in 2027 with mounting cynicism about the existence of democracy itself. What use is a ballot box when the law bends to one man’s will?

The power of presidential pardon was designed to act as a constitutional safeguard, a corrective mechanism for the excesses of the justice system and a means of aligning law with humanity, but Tinubu’s application of the power has morphed it into a political instrument that blurs the line between leadership and self-preservation. By using the prerogative of mercy to rehabilitate his allies and soften his public image ahead of 2027, the President has undermined the credibility of the justice system he swore to uphold. In doing so, he has not only eroded public trust but deepened the cynicism that already defines Nigeria’s democracy – where justice, like everything else, depends on proximity to power.