by Olusegun Adeniyi

Following his arrest in 2005, according to the story, Alamieyeseigha was brought to the villa in handcuffs and made to prostrate before Obasanjo. With his legs firmly placed atop Alamieyeseigha’s back, Obasanjo reportedly said to the former Bayelsa State Governor: “You said I am not electable for a second term but here I am now and see where you are!”

As the presidency seemed to be playing games with the agenda for last week Tuesday’s Council of State meeting with regards to the names of those to be granted state pardon (before finally sending out the last copy on the eve of the session), many members conveniently chose to stay away. Incidentally, the memo contained a list of 57 prison inmates and ex-convicts granted presidential amnesty in commemoration of the 52nd independence anniversary last October. For this category of offenders, 71 names were initially recommended by the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy (PACPM) said to have been reconstituted on November 15, 2011. But ultimately, 57 were approved with 14 rejected based on their involvement in armed robbery, according to the memo.

Concerning the second category, the memo stated: “The committee received applications for pardon from individuals or their legal representatives and after examining them in the light of set criteria, recommended the following cases for consideration: Ex-Major Bello Muhammed Magaji (NA/6604), Mohammed Abba Liman Biu, Shettima Mohammed Bulama and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha (former governor of Bayelsa state). Committee also considered representations from some military officers and individuals indicted and convicted in the ‘phantom coups’ of 1995 and 1997 as follows: Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (posthumously); Major General Oladipo Diya (rtd); Major General Abdulakareem Adisa (posthumously) and Major Segun Fadipe (rtd).”

Before we deal with major issues, let me first dispense with some minor details. One, for anybody to be granted a pardon, he or she must have applied and in case the person is dead, the family would have sought such on his/her behalf. The family of the late Shehu Yar’Adua has come out to say they never requested for any pardon and could not have done so because their man was actually pardoned by former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar alongside President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1998. Unfortunately, this sort of embarrassment is fast becoming a pattern with this administration, considering that just last year some Nigerians were listed for the category of national honours already bestowed on them by previous governments. In a few cases, would-be-recipients (who turned down the awards) were even ‘demoted’ by being given lower honours than what had previously been awarded them. Now, the federal government is granting state pardon to someone already pardoned!

Two, Diya was convicted for coup plotting as a Lt. General. While the clemency earlier granted him in 1999 may not have restored his military rank, what the new pardon implies, especially if the content of the approved presidential memo is what is eventually gazetted, is that Diya has been pardoned as a retired Major General and not Lt. General, all because some officials cannot pay attention to small details.

Three, following the conclusion of the Council of State meeting last week, none of the eminent persons who attended the session was ready to speak on record that pardons were indeed granted to certain categories of Nigerians. While presidential spokespersons deliberately rendered themselves incommunicado, Governor Murtala Nyako who was mandated to speak to the press lied, apparently because he felt ashamed to own up to the decisions duly taken at the meeting.

Now let’s deal with the serious issues. There are three controversial pardons and each represents a different kind of corruption. The first is that of Major Magaji who was jailed for sexually molesting four young boys in a case involving, in the words of the Supreme Court, “the beastly, barbaric and bizarre offence of sodomy”. Upon conviction by a military court-martial, Magaji took his case to the Court of Appeal which affirmed the ruling and then finally, to the Supreme Court where all the five Justices, led by Niki Tobi, also affirmed the conviction. While some people may not have any problem with Magaji’s pardon, it is a known fact that sex offenders are hardly granted this sort of pardon in most countries. The second is Bulama, a former managing director of the Bank of the North jailed for unauthorized lending credits of N600 million. His is a case of being second term lucky as I recall that his application for pardon was once rejected under the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua presidency. And then there is Alamieyeseigha whose investigation and subsequent trial required multi-lateral collaboration between the government of Nigeria and that of Britain, United States, South Africa, Bahamas and Seychelles as well as the World Bank under the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative (STAR). At the end, Alamieyeseigha (who had previously been detained in London on charges of money laundering before jumping bail) was impeached, convicted for corruption and sentenced to two years imprisonment. It is his pardon that has drawn much of the public opprobrium.

Personally, I have sympathy for Alamieyeseigha even though I have never met him because in the course of his ordeal in 2005 (at a time I was THISDAY editor), I had reasons to suspect that there were also political motives to his travails; although that did not detract from the fact that he looted Bayelsa State treasury, a crime to which he actually confessed. Again, the late President Yar’Adua once shared with me an interesting story. One morning when I took the newspaper reports for the day to him inside his study and he saw a headline that had to do with President Obasanjo, he chuckled and muttered: “Baba is a case!” I knew instantly that he wanted to share a gist with me, so I sat down. It did not take long before he told me the story which he said Alamieyeseigha himself told him. Following his arrest in 2005, according to the story, Alamieyeseigha was brought to the villa in handcuff and made to prostrate before Obasanjo. With his legs firmly placed atop Alamieyeseigha’s back, Obasanjo reportedly said to the former Bayelsa State Governor: “You said I am not electable for a second term but here I am now and see where you are!”

So to the extent that Alamieyeseigha has suffered serious humiliation on account of his crime and has served terms, granting him pardon is not necessarily a bad idea, especially when some of his colleagues who may have stolen more money than him are walking free. I am also aware that unlike some cantankerous presidential ‘godfather’, Alamieyeseigha (who commands enormous respect among Ijaw elite), has been working in the background for the sustenance of peace in the Niger Delta.

What the President and his handlers, however, fail to understand is that this issue goes beyond the person of Alamieyeseigha to the integrity of our criminal justice system. As much as I sympathise with Alamieyeseigha, what his pardon has done is to confirm that in Nigeria the rich and the politically connected can commit crimes and if they are ever brought for trial they can do “plea bargain”, get slap-on-the-wrist sentences and finally secure presidential pardon. That was the point the audacious armed robbery suspect, Garba Sani, was making last week in court when he told reporters: “We have a lot of criminals in Nigeria. Senators are stealing money and nobody has arrested them. We too need money.”

However, by asking whether the outrage over the pardon granted Alamieyeseigha has anything to do with his being an Ijaw man, Dr Doyin Okupe introduced an unfortunate ethnic slant into the whole matter. And in doing so, he betrayed the Villa reflex of framing every discourse in the we-versus-them mindset that has become rather unhelpful. Nigerians are angry not because the man pardoned is the Governor-General of the Ijaw nation (whatever that means) but rather because never in the history of our nation have we had–as we do today–so many unresolved cases of monumental corruption. From the fuel subsidy scam to the pension fund fraud (both running into hundreds of billions of Naira), the impression is being gradually created that to steal in Nigeria and escape justice, then you must steal big. Therefore, as one of the few high-profile cases brought to a conclusive trial with conviction secured, the pardon of Alamieyeseigha implies that the same state that seeks accountability of our public officials can easily, if not cynically, relieve them of their burden of proven guilt.

To those who cite United States as example in presidential pardon, what they may not know is that whereas US accounts for five percent of the world’s population, it has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners which means that it is a society where crimes are easily detected and punished. In contrast, our own country with a population of more than 160 million people, has a total prison inmates of 51,000 out which only 12,000 have been convicted!

While I personally have no problem with granting a pardon to Alamieyeseigha, I believe it sends a very wrong signal to have done it at this period. As Festus Keyamo argued in his brilliant intervention on the issue, this sort of pardon is usually granted “when the dynamics of society and politics have moved the general mood of the country from the reason why the person was convicted in the first place.” In that vein, given it’s timing, what this pardon has done is to convey to the world the impression that we condone corruption in Nigeria.

Louis Odion @ 40
Edo State Information Commissioner, Mr Louis Odion (who will be 40 on Monday), is a remarkable story in tenacity and dogged determination. I can write a book on Louis who was my deputy first at Concord and later at THISDAY because we have come a long way. Incidentally, it was Louis who actually gave this column its name. When in 1996, Mr Sam Omatseye (current Chair of The Nation’s editorial board) left for the United States and I was promoted to take his place as Deputy to then Sunday Concord editor, Mr Tunji Bello (currently Lagos State Environment Commissioner), I was also asked to begin writing a weekly column to which Louis suggested that it be called “The verdict according to Olusegun Adeniyi”. But what perhaps defines our relationship was what happened on my wedding day on December 19, 1998, a Nollywood story of its own. Louis was my Best Man and we were 20 couples to be joined at Winners Chapel, Ipaja, Lagos. Interestingly, while every other man had his bride with him, mine was nowhere to be found.

With all eyes on me as I performed all the marital rituals (exchange of vows and rings, kissing the bride etc.) alone, every time I rushed out of the church in anger and confusion, Louis ensured he bundled me back inside. Of course my wife would later arrive when the church service was over and the officiating pastor was about to share the grace. As we later found out, she was trapped in a crazy traffic caused by long fuel queues along the way as a result of fuel scarcity at the time (and this was before GSM). However, that I was still waiting at that point was because Louis effectively did his job as my Best Man or more appropriately, the enforcer! As he therefore turns 40, I cannot but wish him the best that life can bring. Congratulations, my brother and a very dear friend.

Read the original piece in THISDAY

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.