Editor’s Note: This column was supposed to wait for “Sarcastic Sunday with Mohammed Bello Doka,” but Nigeria, in her infinite capacity for political theatre, refuses to give us breathing space. We would have waited till Sunday, but at this rate, we might all choke on laughter before then.
When a president signs mercy with the same enthusiasm a student signs an attendance sheet, you know the nation has entered its tragicomedy phase.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidential pardon list was meant to showcase compassion — instead, it showcased confusion, comedy, and perhaps, the finest specimen of Nigerian governance: sign first, vet later, explain never.
The Day Mercy Overslept
Somewhere between Aso Rock and the Ministry of Justice, an innocent document titled Instrument of Prerogative of Mercy turned into a script for “Errors of State.”
On paper, it began nobly — a presidential gesture to decongest prisons and reward repentance. But when the list of 175 names went public, Nigerians discovered that the President had not only forgiven sins, he had accidentally canonized them.
The pardon list read like an attendance sheet from Kuje Correctional University: drug barons, illegal miners, fraudsters, kidnappers — all mixed lovingly with national heroes like Herbert Macaulay, Major-General Mamman Jiya Vatsa, and Ken Saro-Wiwa.
If there was ever a time to redefine “inclusive governance,” this was it.
The President says he wants to decongest the prisons — by freeing just 175 lucky souls in a nation where over seventy thousand inmates rot in custody without trial, some forgotten before WhatsApp was invented. A country choking on overcrowded cells, but salvation comes in teaspoons — one presidential signature per scandal. It’s like pouring a sachet of water on a burning refinery and calling it rainfall. If this is decongestion, then mosquitoes should start claiming they’re ventilating hospitals.
When Mercy Became A Multipurpose Tool
The presidency called it “compassion.” The public called it “comedy.”
Civil society called it “a national insult.”
And ordinary Nigerians, with their typical resilience and humor, summed it up best:
“Na who write exam go prison, but na who no write am collect pardon.”
For a country battling drug trafficking, corruption, and insecurity, freeing the same people we spend billions chasing felt like a cruel prank from the gods of irony.
Signed Before Vetting — A New Nigerian Innovation
In any normal democracy, you vet names before signing. But in Nigeria, innovation reigns.
President Tinubu, in a moment of what one insider described as “executive efficiency,” reportedly signed the list first and sent it for vetting after public outrage.
It’s like approving a wedding guest list after the reception.
The Ministry of Justice, upon receiving the already-signed document, allegedly began its vetting retroactively — Nigeria’s favorite way of saying “we meant well, but we blundered beautifully.”
“We are reviewing the list,” they said, after the President’s pen had already performed the national baptism of mercy.
How do you review what’s already signed? In Nigeria, simple — you call it “post-signatory due diligence.”
Selective Mercy, Selective Memory: A New Nigerian Innovation
This is the same President who, barely a year ago, found it patriotic to arrest teenagers and underage beggars for “treason” because they dared to hold cardboard signs during the End Bad Governance protests of October 2024. Boys who couldn’t afford breakfast suddenly became threats to national security, paraded like coup plotters before television cameras. It took a nationwide backlash — and perhaps a twinge of conscience — to drop the charges. Yet now, with Shakespearean irony, the same presidency wants to decongest prisons by pardoning 175 drug dealers, murderers, and illegal miners, while over seventy thousand forgotten citizens still rot in pretrial limbo. Nigeria must be the only country where justice wears a blindfold not to stay neutral, but to avoid seeing her own embarrassment.
The Great Disappearing Act
Days later, three official documents emerged: one granting pardon, one granting clemency, and one commuting death sentences.
Altogether, they contained just 34 names.
From 175 to 34 — a 141-name weight loss in record time. No diet plan, no public notice.
141 beneficiaries vanished like political promises after elections.
The government didn’t call it a mistake. No, that would imply accountability. They called it “review.”
And in this republic, review means delete, deny, and move on.
“We acted within the constitution,” Bayo Onanuga said — and he’s right. The constitution doesn’t forbid you from pardoning the wrong people first.
The Pardon Party We Didn’t RSVP For
The first list was a national buffet of mercy — everyone got a spoon.
Among the honored invitees:
- Maryam Sanda, convicted for the murder of her husband.
- Professor Magaji Garba, jailed for fraud.
- Kelvin Oniarah Ezigbe, a cybercrime veteran.
- Major S.A. Akubo, an ex-soldier turned embezzlement expert.
- And a few dozen illegal mining barons who dug more holes in Nigeria’s economy than we can fill with excuses.
They were all pardoned — until they weren’t.
The new list trimmed them out like an overzealous barber with shaky hands.
“It’s a government of amnesty, by amnesia, for anomalies,” one activist quipped.
Questions Nobody Wants To Answer
Who compiled the first list?
Who inserted the names of criminals and called it mercy?
Who vetted it before the President signed it?
And the most Nigerian question of all — who will take responsibility?
Silence.
Because in Nigeria, accountability is always the only person not invited to the meeting.
When Justice Met Comedy
Let’s give credit where it’s due — the Presidency responded to criticism.
It simply did it like a magician performing damage control: abracadabra, 141 names gone.
No apology, no explanation.
Just a new list, clean and lean, as if the old one never existed.
That’s not governance — that’s editing.
“We cannot allow emotions to override compassion,” a presidential aide reportedly said.
But maybe, just maybe, we could allow common sense to accompany it next time.
A Nation Addicted To Forgiveness
Forgiveness is noble. But in Nigeria, it’s also contagious.
We forgive corruption, incompetence, and sometimes, even treason — provided the right hand signs it.
Our leaders confuse mercy with mercy-lessness.
Because when you pardon a murderer, you don’t heal society — you wound justice.
“Mercy without merit is madness in uniform,” my late uncle would say — and if he were alive today, he’d probably be on that list too.
Even I, a harmless keyboard warrior armed with nothing but a power bank, borrowed airtime, and a stubborn sense of humor, have not been spared. My only weapon is sarcasm, yet I’ve been promised Kuje accommodation by some of my former “data boy” comrades — those tireless apostles of digital propaganda. They swore, before the ink of my last Sarcastic Sunday dried, that my next column would be from a correctional facility. Imagine that — a government with thousands of data boys at its disposal still trembling at one blogger powered by low battery and higher truth. When power fears parody, when rulers panic over ridicule, it means they are not trying to decongest prisons — they are trying to fill them with anyone still capable of typing.
The Final Irony
In the end, 141 names were dropped, but no heads rolled.
The President corrected the mistake, but no one took the blame.
Justice was embarrassed, mercy was mocked, and Nigerians were reminded once again that our greatest national export is irony.
If this were a film, it would be titled “Mercy Unfiltered: The Presidential Edition.”
But it isn’t fiction. It’s Nigeria — a place where mistakes have official stamps, and governance sometimes happens by accident.
“It began as mercy and ended as a miracle of editing,” a weary observer remarked.
And truly, who needs comedy when reality writes better jokes?
This piece was written by Mohammed Bello Doka for Abuja Network News. Originally reserved for “Sarcastic Sunday,” but Nigeria refused to wait. The nation itself has become a weekly column.