BY: Sen. Dino Melaye
Section 175 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is unequivocal in conferring on the President the prerogative of mercy. It provides thus:
The President may –
(a) grant any person concerned with or convicted of any offence created by an Act of the National Assembly a pardon, either free or subject to lawful conditions;
(b) grant to any person a respite, either for an indefinite or for a specified period, of the execution of any punishment imposed on that person for such an offence;
(c) substitute a less severe form of punishment for any punishment imposed on that person for such an offence; or
(d) Remit the whole or any part of any punishment imposed on that person for such an offence or of any penalty or forfeiture otherwise due to the State on account of such an offence.
Subsection (2) further provides that the powers of the President under subsection (1) shall be exercised after consultation with the Council of State, while subsection (3) extends the same powers to persons convicted under military law.
This provision, often referred to as the prerogative of mercy, encompasses both clemency and pardon.
Clemency is the broader term describing acts of mercy or leniency from the consequences of a criminal conviction, while a pardon is a specific form of clemency that signifies official forgiveness for a crime.
However, the exercise of this constitutional power must not be divorced from its moral and social implications. The President, though vested with discretion, holds that discretion in trust for the people.
To pardon, therefore, is not merely an act of executive benevolence, it is, symbolically, the people of Nigeria saying, “We forgive.” It follows then that any such decision must reflect the will and conscience of the people, and not merely the inclination of a few.
While the Constitution does not limit the types of offences for which a pardon may be granted, reason and justice demand that such discretion be exercised judiciously and in the public interest.
Visiting our correctional centers reveals the harsh truth, they are overcrowded with individuals who have not been tried, or who committed minor offences often born out of economic hardship and systemic failure. These are men and women who, in moments of despair, erred, but whose rehabilitation could serve the cause of justice and compassion.
Yet, this administration has gone further, granting pardons to seventy convicted drug lords, a number unprecedented in Nigeria’s history and, according to available checks, without precedent anywhere in the world.
It is a reckless act that undermines not only the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) but the very foundations of law, order, and justice. By this singular act, years of painstaking work, intelligence operations, and undercover risks undertaken by NDLEA operatives have been rendered meaningless.
This decision poses grave dangers to the men and women who dedicated their lives to fighting the drug menace.
Many of these officers risked everything, their safety, their families, and their reputations to ensure the conviction of these same criminals. To now see those individuals walk free, shielded by presidential pardon, is to expose these officers to direct retaliation and vengeance. The drug trade is not a benign enterprise; it is a violent and vindictive underworld, where memories are long and retribution is often deadly.
By freeing convicted drug barons, the government has effectively compromised the security of NDLEA operatives, prosecutors, and judges who stood firm in the pursuit of justice. Their families now live under the shadow of fear, knowing that those once behind bars now roam free, empowered, embittered, and seeking to settle scores. The pardon not only releases the offenders; it releases danger back into society.
Beyond the domestic consequences, this decision jeopardizes Nigeria’s global credibility. It sends a dangerous signal to international partners and anti-narcotics agencies that Nigeria is no longer a reliable ally in the global war against drugs.
Our standing in the United Nations Drug Control Index and global human rights and anti-narcotics cooperation ratings will inevitably decline. The message to the world is clear: Nigeria now pardons what the rest of the world punishes.
In the same impulsive manner that the administration announced the removal of fuel subsidy on May 29, 2023, without consultation, planning, or expert briefing. It has now extended mercy without morality and forgiveness without foresight.
The consequences, once again, will be borne not by those in power but by ordinary citizens and the brave officers who have been left exposed in the line of duty.
If this administration were to declare mercy, these are the people who truly deserve our collective pardon are the petty offenders, the economically displaced, those caught in the cracks of a failing system.
But when such mercy is extended instead to persons convicted of drug trafficking (40%), illegal mining (34%), financial and white-collar crimes (17%), violent or capital offences (14%), property hijacking/maritime crimes (6%), arms-related offences (3%), and human trafficking (2%), one must question both the intent and the moral basis of the decision.
A government’s power to forgive must never become a tool for rehabilitating reputation or recycling privilege. To release drug dealers, illegal miners, murderers, human traffickers, and economic saboteurs under the banner of mercy is nothing short of a moral travesty and a national disgrace. Such a decision should find no place in a society that still claims to uphold justice, accountability, and the sanctity of human life. When mercy is extended without a clear framework for rehabilitation, reintegration, or community supervision, it ceases to be an act of compassion, it becomes a reckless betrayal of public trust and a blatant abuse of presidential discretion.
We are told that some of the pardons were granted on grounds of old age, acquisition of vocational skills, or enrollment in the National Open University.
Yet these factors address neither the character flaws nor the moral deficiencies that birthed the offences. These crimes were not born of ignorance but of greed, self-indulgence, and moral decay. Skills acquisition does not cure these tendencies; only discipline, self-regulation, and a reformed conscience can.
This raises a crucial question: what psychological or behavioral reorientation programs has the government put in place to ensure that those released do not relapse into the same destructive patterns? Without such internal work, what we call “pardon” may simply be the recycling of corruption under the guise of compassion.
Moreover, the claim that those pardoned have demonstrated “remorse and good conduct” raises serious questions. What constitutes remorse? Who determines “good conduct”? On what empirical or moral grounds are these evaluations made?
We cannot, in good conscience, reintegrate individuals who have profited from the suffering of others, drug barons who destroy lives, financiers of illegal mining who plunder national wealth, and fraudsters who have eroded the trust of ordinary Nigerians, and then expect a more just society.
The drug trade in particular exemplifies the danger. Often, the “lords” remain insulated while their foot soldiers take the fall, only to return emboldened. To release such actors without accountability mechanisms is to endorse a vicious cycle, the message this sends to society is corrosive: crime pays.
Mercy is not meant to embolden wrongdoing; it is meant to redeem. When a government uses a pardon to free those whose crimes have crippled our moral and economic foundations, it betrays both justice and the people it swore to serve.
This pardon, therefore, does not reflect the will of Nigerians.
It reflects the selective compassion of privilege. It tells the poor man who stole to eat that he must remain behind bars, while those who plundered the nation’s resources and demonstrate detestable human behavior are forgiven in the name of clemency.
Nigeria deserves better. The prerogative of mercy should not be an instrument of political favor or social imbalance. It must be guided by transparent standards, moral accountability, and a genuine desire to heal, not to recycle impunity.
If mercy must be exercised, let it begin with the forgotten, the poor, the voiceless, and the unjustly detained. That is the only way mercy can remain noble, and justice can remain whole.
.Melaye, Esq, is a legal practitioner, democratic evangelist, st and a public analyst
