The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Transparency International (TI) Nigeria has expressed disappointment over the pardon granted to some corrupt politicians who were convicted by the Nigerian Judicial System.
The Executive Director, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani) in a press release issued in Abuja said they are worried about the effect such ill-thought political pardon will have on the anti-corruption efforts, which constitutes the major agenda and commitment of the current administration.
He said they find some of names recommended by the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy which is headed by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the federation questionable and the mere fact that citizens cannot get the full list of the over 150 persons pardoned shows a lack of transparency on the process.
In his words “This trend of shielding Politically Exposed Persons from accounting for their actions is disturbing. Recall that in 2019, the Ministry of Justice filed a nolle prosequi to strike out high profile cases.
“An example of this was that of senator Danjuma Goje alongside a former Executive Chairman of Gombe State Universal Basic Education Board, Mr. Aliyu El-Nafaty in 2019.
“Coupled with corruption allegation in the judicial system, this pardon shows how bad Nigeria’s anti-corruption efforts is and it comes barely a week after the United States government released it’s ‘2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Nigeria’ where it accused Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of focusing on low-and midlevel government officials.
“The pardon further confirms the poor rating of Nigeria on different global indexes and reports like the Corruption Perception Index and the Afro barometer corruption survey which have reported an increase in corruption in Nigeria,” he said .
