October 12, 2025
By Ademola Adekusibe
Something snapped in Nigeria yesterday. It wasn’t just the announcement that President Tinubu had pardoned 175 convicts; it was the final confirmation that in this country, crime no longer carries consequence. It was the state’s open confession that Nigeria’s justice system is now a casino, and those with connections always win.
Let’s start with one name that should haunt every soldier who ever wore the uniform: Major Suleiman Alabi Akubo. In 2008, a military court didn’t just find him guilty; it laid bare the horror of his betrayal. The man stole 7,000 weapons from the Nigerian Army, weapons meant for the nation’s defense, and sold them to militants who turned them on his own comrades. Soldiers died. Innocent Nigerians died. The country bled. And the General Court Martial, in its rare moment of courage, sentenced him to life imprisonment.
That was supposed to be justice. That was supposed to be a warning that no one, no matter how decorated, could betray the flag and walk free. But now, the same Nigeria whose sons were buried by bullets he sold has opened the prison gates and called it “presidential mercy.” Mercy for treason. Mercy for blood money. Mercy for a man whose greed armed killers and destabilized the nation.
If this is mercy, then what do we call justice?
And then there’s Maryam Sanda, a woman who, by her own actions, turned her matrimonial home into a slaughterhouse. The night she killed her husband wasn’t an accident; it was a progression of rage, five failed attempts before the fatal strike. The court found her guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced her to death by hanging. Nigerians thought it was closure. The law had spoken. But in this new Nigeria, even murder has an escape route, a back door guarded by sympathy, privilege, and presidential benevolence.
Today, she walks free. Her victim remains six feet below, voiceless, silenced forever. Is this how we honour the dead? By setting their killers free in the name of “mercy”? If Maryam Sanda deserves pardon, then what message are we sending to every man or woman enduring domestic violence? That if their abuser kills them, justice can later be undone with a signature?
And this isn’t even about two names. The rot runs deeper. Among those granted clemency were illegal miners, men who have turned parts of Zamfara and Niger State into killing fields. They were handed over to a politician, yes, a politician, as though the state were transferring cattle, not convicts. Do we even realize how insane that sounds?
Then there’s the drug traffickers, the billion-naira fraudsters, and bribe-takers like Farouk Lawan, once caught stuffing $500,000 into his agbada like a man packing sin into his conscience. They, too, found mercy. While ordinary Nigerians sit in jail for stealing yams, the powerful steal nations and go home with presidential blessings.
What sort of country pardons a man who sold weapons to militants but keeps forgotten prisoners locked up for years without trial? What manner of justice rewards murder with mercy but starves the poor of fairness? If clemency is now a luxury reserved for those whose crimes shook the nation, then we have entered the age of moral bankruptcy.
This isn’t compassion. It’s corrosion. It’s the state officially declaring that morality is negotiable, that you can destroy lives, arm terrorists, betray your country, and still find redemption as long as the corridors of power recognize your name.
And perhaps the cruelest part? The families of the victims, the widows, the orphans, the soldiers who died holding their rifles against bullets sold by Akubo, were not even consulted. Justice wasn’t just denied; it was mocked.
So yes, call it “Presidential Pardon” if you must, but let’s say what it truly is: a betrayal of every honest man who ever stood for something in this country. A message to every Nigerian that the law is not a moral compass, it’s a privilege card.
Tomorrow, when another officer sells arms to insurgents, when another wife kills her husband, when another politician embezzles billions, and we ask, “Why are people this reckless?” the answer will stare us in the face: because the system rewards the wicked and excuses evil when it’s done in expensive English.
This wasn’t mercy. This was moral suicide.
