At Thursday’s Council of State meeting, which was held at State House in Abuja, Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) presented President Bola Tinubu’s recommendations based on the report of the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy. The decision came after his presentation.
Although the complete names of the beneficiaries are still to be published, our correspondent heard that pardons were awarded to one of Nigeria’s founding fathers, Herbert Macaulay and former FCT minister in the Babangida regime, Maj-Gen. Mamman Vatsa (retd).
Members of the Ogoni Nine and Ogoni Four are also beneficiaries.
“Herbert Macaulay and Vatsa are the two major ones on that list,” a source who attended the meeting told our correspondent. Macaulay, often called the “father of Nigerian nationalism,” was twice convicted by the colonial authorities in Lagos. In 1913, while in private practice as a surveyor, he was tried for misappropriating funds from an estate he administered and sentenced to prison; historians have long debated the fairness of that prosecution. In 1928, after his Lagos Daily News published incendiary claims during the Eleko (Oba of Lagos) agitation, he was convicted of sedition in the so-called “Gunpowder Plot” case and jailed for six months with hard labour.
In a briefing with State House correspondents following the meeting, Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna state explained, “82 of the inmates were granted full pardon, 65 had their sentences reduced, while seven death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.” Vatsa, a poet, former FCT minister, and member of the Supreme Military Council, was executed by firing squad on March 5, 1986, after a secret military tribunal found him guilty of treason over an alleged coup against then military ruler Ibrahim Babangida, a childhood friend. The case has remained contentious for decades, with sporadic calls for a posthumous forgiveness.
“The ruling demonstrates the President’s dedication to justice and reforming the criminal justice system.”
President Tinubu presided over the meeting, which also approved important appointments, such as Tonge Bularafa serving as the Federal Commissioner for Yobe State on the National Population Commission and Dr. Aminu Yusuf from Niger State as its Chairman. The approval of both appointments was unanimous.
