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Former lawmaker Senator Dino Melaye has criticised President Bola Tinubu over the recent presidential clemency granted to some inmates, alleging that among those pardoned were about 70 individuals convicted for drug-related offences.
In a post on X on Sunday, Melaye described the action as “unprecedented in history,” claiming that no other government in the world had ever granted such large-scale pardon to convicted drug offenders.
“Pardon granted 70 drug lords by President Tinubu is unprecedented in history. Checks have revealed that it has never happened in the history of the world. My advice to the President is to scrap the NDLEA. His action has made a beautiful nonsensical of all the efforts of the agency since inception,” Melaye wrote.
The Eastern Updates reports that President Tinubu recently granted a presidential pardon to 175 persons.
The list included late environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, nationalist Herbert Macaulay, Major General Mamman Vatsa, and Maryam Sanda, who was sentenced to death for killing her husband, amongst others.
The Presidency on Saturday released a comprehensive list of the beneficiaries of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidential pardon, clemency and commutation of sentences to 175 convicts and former convicts, which was released on Thursday after the National Council of State meeting.
A statement by Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, gave an exhaustive breakdown of the categories of the President’s prerogatives, comprising full pardons, posthumous pardons, clemency, sentence reductions and commutations from death to life imprisonment.
The exercise of mercy for the 175 convicts and former convicts, including military officers, public officials, remorseful drug offenders, illegal miners, and foreigners, followed the recommendation of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi.
The committee’s report, as presented by Fagbemi, recommended various forms of reprieve: pardon for 17 persons (including 11 posthumously), clemency for 82 inmates, commutation of sentences for 65, and conversion of death sentences to life imprisonment for seven others.
According to the statement, President Tinubu granted mercy to many of the convicts for reasons including remorse, good conduct, old age, and enrolment in reform programmes such as the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
Those granted full presidential pardon are Nweke Francis Chibueze, Dr. Nwogu Peters, Mrs. Anastasia Daniel Nwaoba, Barrister Hussaini Alhaji Umar, Ayinla Saadu Alanamu and Hon. Farouk M. Lawan.
