Clemency: Onoh urges Tinubu to reverse pardon for Maryam Sanda, drug convicts

By Dennis Agbo

President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson successful the South East, Dr. Josef Onoh, has called connected the President to reconsider and reverse the caller pardons granted to immoderate convicts, including Maryam Sanda and definite cause offenders.

President Tinubu had, past week, approved the recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Committee connected the Prerogative of Mercy, granting clemency to 175 individuals — among them cause convicts, foreigners, and superior offenders specified arsenic Maryam Sanda, who was sentenced to decease successful 2020 for the execution of her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, during a home dispute.

However, Onoh described the determination arsenic “morally incorrect and a rape of justice,” arguing that it could harm the administration’s planetary representation and undermine the country’s justness system.

According to him, granting pardon to offenders specified arsenic Nweke Francis Chibueze, serving a beingness condemnation for cocaine trafficking, and Isaac Justina, convicted for cannabis possession, represents “a profound ethical and organization rupture that demands contiguous rectification.”

“While constitutionally permissible, this enactment contravenes the motivation imperatives of retributive justness and restorative equity. It inflicts intelligence trauma connected victims’ families, perpetuates systemic injustice, and erodes the deterrence mechanisms indispensable for societal stability,” Onoh stated.

He maintained that pardoning Sanda, who caused “irreversible nonaccomplishment to the Bello household done an enactment of lethal violence,” undermines the worth of quality beingness and accountability.

Onoh further argued that extending clemency to convicted cause traffickers sends a unsafe awesome to society.

“Absolving cause dealers similar Chibueze, whose trafficking perpetuates cycles of addiction, assemblage devastation, and organized crime, normalizes predation connected society’s astir fragile members — peculiarly the youth,” helium said.

The statesmanlike adjutant warned that specified decisions could tarnish Nigeria’s representation globally and erode the country’s credibility with planetary partners specified arsenic the UN Office connected Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

He besides cautioned that the determination could demoralize Nigeria’s information agencies, including the NDLEA and the police, whose unit risked their lives to guarantee the convictions.

“This erodes the halfway of the regularisation of instrumentality and undermines the morale of those who enforce it. The NDLEA’s sacrifices successful securing these convictions indispensable not beryllium trivialized,” Onoh noted.

Onoh truthful urged President Tinubu to reverse the pardons done a transparent reappraisal process to reaffirm his administration’s committedness to justness and accountability.

“Reversal of these pardons volition reconstruct equity, heal nationalist psyches, bolster information morale, safeguard younker futures, and elevate Nigeria’s planetary stature,” helium emphasized.

He concluded by observing that portion each enactment is unfastened to interpretation, “whatever mentation prevails astatine a fixed clip is simply a relation of power, not truth,” insisting that motivation integrity indispensable prevail successful the workout of statesmanlike mercy.

The station Clemency: Onoh urges Tinubu to reverse pardon for Maryam Sanda, cause convicts appeared archetypal connected Vanguard News.