Bayo Onanuga is the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy. In this interview monitored on Arise Television, he speaks on the decision of the President to review the pardon list and the alleged attempted coup. ANAYO EZUGWU reports
Isn’t the review and reversal of the pardon list an admission that the initial decision was flawed, and what does this say about the President’s decision-making process?
What Nigerians ought to have seen now, by now, is that this President is not one that is afraid to reverse himself. He is a human being. He can make mistakes and he listens to the public. He’s a president who wakes up in the morning, the first thing he does is to read all Nigerian papers, watch the television to know what is going on. He tries to understand what people are talking about. So, I don’t see it as a matter of weakness.
It’s something that I think is a matter of strength that you do something and then you re-appreciate it and you make some adjustments and that’s what he has done in this case of a pardon or clemency. When people talk about public outrage about what he did in the first instance in consultation with the Council of State, I don’t agree that it was a general outrage.
Most of the criticisms were coming in the case of Maryam Sanda, who the court found her guilty and sentenced her to death for killing her husband. As to whether he freed drug convicts and so on, even the second list still contained some drug offenders who were also given clemency, not pardon, and Mariam too was given clemency.
The President gave Maryam 12 years and in the case of the drugs people, they were also reduced. Is that right?
Their sentences were reviewed downwards, but not that they were not pardoned. The sentences were commuted, so to say. The president is a compassionate person. And some of the things he does at times show where he is coming from, his own personal philosophy, and his own attitude about a lot of things.
Let me cite the case of Maryam Sanda. Yes, the court found her guilty of killing her husband, a very young man at that time. But her own case was a bit complicated by the fact that she has two children. And I’ve read something about Islamic jurisprudence, where people said that the court ought to have taken into account her children.
Who will take care of them? Their father is no more, and their mother is in jail. It was a crime of passion. Anything could happen between a man and a woman in the heat of argument and things like that. So, I will say the President was moved by compassion and nothing else.
Don’t you think that what appears to be a flip-flop on issues as important as this undermines the President’s credibility and his grasp of the rule of law?
There’s no flip-flop in what he has done. As I said, he’s a man who’s not afraid to check whatever he has done, make corrections, and then move on from there.
If you read the second statement that we issued about this prerogative of mercy, it should be clear that even the Ministry of Justice is essentially in charge of prerogative of mercy. There’s another government department in charge. What the President has seen in the review done was to transfer the secretariat of the prerogative of mercy committee to the Ministry of Justice, so that they can work together.
It will now be supervised by the Ministry of Justice instead of being under the Ministry of Special Duties. They looked at where the problem came from, and they found out that maybe these people ought to move to the Ministry of Justice. Look at members of the committee itself. They are very important people in our society, and whatever they recommended, I don’t think people should just look at that and say there are some irresponsible people who made the recommendations.
They must have considered a lot of things before telling the government that this is how to go about this case and things like that. And if you just go and read in details, the people who are given clemency are young people in their 20s. Some of them, teenagers, were convicted for illegal mining. They are young Nigerians.
People have to wonder what the presidency was thinking as 70 individuals on the original list were convicted of drugs-related offenses, about 30 of them for financial or fraud, 25 of them for violent or capital offences, and a former member of the House of Representatives convicted of receiving bribe in a country whose image has been virtually ruined by corruption…
In the case of the former member of the House, he has served his sentence. He is a free man. What the President personally did was to pardon him, so that he could live a new life. He can come back to office.
We cannot continue to punish people; that guy has served his sentence, he has lost everything. I think the state has a duty to rehabilitate people who have shown some remorse and served their sentences. I’m just saying, in the case of Farouk Lawan, that’s not the message.
I said this guy has already served his sentence. Are you going to accuse the President of doing the same thing with Herbert Macaulay, for instance, who the colonialists, almost 100 years ago convicted for embezzlement and things like that?
Are you going to accuse him of pardoning Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni eight? No! I think society must have the heart of forgiveness, and we cannot continue to bear grudges against people who have made some mistakes.
If you read the notes that were attached to all those things, they are saying they have shown remorse. In the case of Mariam Sanda, the biological father of her late husband was one of the people who pleaded for her release. But, the Bellos, who kicked against it were the people the young man lived with before he died.
Of course, in our tradition, they are also the parents of the boy. If you look at the case of capital punishment, for instance, in some countries, people will go and kill and then some will say 10 years jail or 15 years jail time. In some other jurisdictions, it’s death sentence. How do you evaluate the two? Even in America, in some states it is death sentence.
The President is concerned about the way the security situation is being addressed, and he feels that it’s time to have some new people in charge
Let’s be clear on what the constitution allows the president to do, which is to forgive or pardon after a conviction. Does it allow the president to override a judicial decision, such as reducing a conviction for murder to 12 years in prison?
Well, I’m not a lawyer, I cannot technically answer that, but if you go by what happens all over the world, we’ve seen even the U.S., people forgiving all kinds of offences. You are going to a legal area, I’m not a lawyer, but the same constitution says the president has the power to exercise prerogative of mercy.
Does the president have the sole power to review the list after he has consulted with the Council of State?
Shouldn’t he take the review list back to the Council of State? Let me just tell you that in assessing that power of prerogative of mercy, all the president needs to do is to consult. That’s the key word – consult. It’s not that the council will tell him, go and do this. He merely consults the council. As of now, the constitution we have empowers the president to exercise prerogative of mercy.
So, until an amendment is done by the National Assembly, that’s what we’re going to have for now. If Nigerians sufficiently feel that that section should be reviewed, they can take their case to the National Assembly. Incidentally, the National Assembly is reviewing the constitution, so they can take all these matters there.
What lessons has the presidency learned from all of this?
I said this president is always ready, he listens to public opinion, he’s guided by what people say, and as I said, he’s a president who’s always ready to admit his errors, if he has made errors, he doesn’t consider himself a superman, he sees himself as, he listens to what people are saying, and he corrects himself, and then he moves on. It’s, as I said, it’s not a matter of being, it’s not a weakness, it, that is one of his strengths to make amends, and then to move.
The President has just changed his military chiefs. What prompted that change?
I will say that it’s a routine change. The President is concerned about the way the security situation is being addressed, and he feels that it’s time to have some new people in charge. He gave them a marching order that we should not allow a crisis that began in 2009 to fester – 16 years of insurgency war. The President told the new military chiefs that they must do everything possible to make sure that this country ends this war.
Is this is not related to rumours of an attempted coup?
They are rumours. I’m a journalist but sometimes we don’t answer some basic questions when we report. In Latin, we say, qui bono? Of what benefit will this story be if I publish it?
Of what benefit will it be to a Nigerian journalist or the Nigerian public disseminating rumours about a so-called coup attempt? The military authorities issued a statement and said this is what happened but journalists keep writing all kinds of stories. I don’t speak for the military, but the military spoke and they gave a reason why they arrested those people they said they arrested.
And of course, a section of the media that is looking for traffic is writing all kinds of things. For instance, one newspaper said the managing director of te Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was arrested and they transferred over N40 billion to a politically exposed person, who they say had fled Nigeria and so on.
Today, the same man they said was arrested appeared on television. So, you can see that section of the media, in their bid to get traffic just write all kinds of sensational things. And they don’t ask the basic question of what benefit is this.
If something as serious as that happened, should it not be incumbent upon the government to come out and say this is what happened?
The military authorities are investigating, so my plea to our journalists is, wait for official information. When they conclude, they will release information to say this is what we have found, whether it’s a coup attempt or not, they will tell us.
And then they will take those people to trial. If you write about a coup; do you know what the effect on the country?
A country that is looking for investment and the media are shouting coup attempt. Do you know what it causes for Nigeria? It will scare away investors. So, the media, with their own hands, will destroy the country.
