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.
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