Insensitive pardon for Dariye, Nyame
President Muhammadu Buhari did an irreparable and irredeemable damage to his anti-corruption mission with the pardon he granted former governors Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, two high profile and politically-exposed persons successfully convicted and jailed for corruption. Buhari’s decision, though with the support of the Council of State, unequivocally eroded the public sentiment that he does not condone corruption, as he rode to power in 2015 on the promise to rid Nigeria of corruption, the root cause of most of the intractable challenges facing the country: underdevelopment, infrastructure deficit, poverty and general poor standard of living.
While defending Buhari’s decision in a statement, the presidency said the presidential pardon was not arbitrary; that it was constitutional and followed due process as stipulated by law. It made reference to Section 175 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) which enjoins the president to exercise his constitutional powers “to 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; to grant respite, either for an indefinite or a specified period of the execution of any punishment imposed on that person for such an offence; substitute a less severe form of punishment imposed on that person for such an offence or remit the whole or any part of any punishment imposed on the person for such an offence or of penalty or forfeiture otherwise due to the state on account of such an offence.”
The statement added that Dariye and Nyame were not the only persons so pardoned; that in total, 162 persons benefited from the gesture which was recommended by the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy (PACPM).
The outrage over the presidential pardon for the two former governors is anchored on the fact that the cases that led to their conviction were deliberate and calculated acts of corruption that denied the people of Plateau and Taraba states resources for development. In Dariye’s case, the trial that began in 2007 was stalled by a long and winding legal battle which culminated in a Supreme Court decision in 2015 that the former governor must face trial at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court. But even more outrageous is the substance of the case; that Dariye received a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) cheque of N1.126bn in 2001 to tackle ecological problems in Plateau State, but criminally diverted the fund to his shadow bank account and remitted some to the coffers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It is not clear what ecological problems the fund was meant to solve, but 21 years after the release of the money, that challenge may have remained unsolved.
On the part of Nyame, a preacher, he was convicted for diverting Taraba State’s N1.64bn, released for the purchase of stationery. The money was paid into an account of a company not registered to do the business of supplying stationery, and, from investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), no stationery was supplied to the government. Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the FCT High Court who convicted the two former governors in 2018 was unsparing in her judgment as she drove home the fact that both Dariye and Nyame abused public trust and behaved like common criminals.
Presidential pardon for persons convicted of criminal offences against the state is practised in many countries. In the United States (US) for instance, a beneficiary would have served at least five years out of his jail term and must have demonstrated a sense of remorse for the crime. It is not clear what the rule is in Nigeria, but Dariye and Nyame, both convicted in 2018, have not served up to five years in prison.
However, Buhari’s handlers invoked age and ill-health as part of the reasons advanced by the PACPM that recommended the pardon for them.
Despite the excuses for the pardon of these two, we insist that this is not the auspicious time for such gesture. This controversial act can dampen the spirit of anti-corruption agencies who are exposed to a lot of danger while carrying out investigation into corrupt acts by politically-exposed persons, and who use huge amounts from the scarce resources we have in the process. It can even dampen the spirit of anti-corruption judges.
We, therefore, call on the Council of State to desist from being a rubberstamp of presidential decisions, especially those that are ill-advised, like this pardon for Dariye and Nyame. The council should have firmly stood against the insensitive decision to free the former governors.