Atiku Slams Tinubu’s Over Pardon Review

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Former vice-president Atiku Abubakar has slammed President Bola Tinubu concerning the reversal of the presidential pardon which he granted to convicted drug traffickers, kidnappers, and other criminals.

The African Examiner writes that President Tinubu, on Wednesday, directed the removal of persons convicted for kidnapping, drug trafficking, human trafficking, fraud, and unlawful possession of firearms from the list of beneficiaries from the federal government’s prerogative of mercy.

Reacting, Abubakar stated that the decision to cancel the pardon was because of Nigerians who expressed their anger, as he described the move as “too little, too late”.

In a statement issued by his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, Abubakar stated the reversal was not an act of wisdom but “an act of shame”.

 “President Bola Tinubu has ‘cancelled’ his own pardon for drug traffickers, kidnappers, and other hardened criminals, but only after Nigerians shouted loud enough to wake him from his moral slumber,” the statement reads.

Abubakar also disclosed that the controversy raised fundamental questions concerning governance and accountability in the present administration.

“If the public had kept quiet, would convicted drug lords and kidnappers be walking free today under the President’s blessing?” he asked.

He slammed the persons in charge of the compilation of the list of beneficiaries and what criteria were used to ascertain freeing such offenders, saying that the attorney-general must explain the role of the government in the “national embarrassment”.

Abubakar also accused the Tinubu administration of a recurring pattern of hasty decisions after public backlash and reversals.

“This pattern has become too familiar, announce the unthinkable, watch the country erupt, then hurriedly reverse course as if governance is a game of ‘trial and error’,” he said.

The former Vice president further described the presidential pardon as a “sacred constitutional power meant to reflect justice, mercy, and national interest, not to reward impunity or test public patience”.

Abubakar tasked President Tinubu to publish the list of those who were meant to get the pardon, adding that Nigerians should know “the names, the crimes, and the hands that signed off on this reckless indulgence”.

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