Former lawmaker, Senator Dino Melaye, has berated President Bola Tinubu over the recent presidential clemency granted to some inmates.
Recall that the Tinubu administration released a list of all 175 beneficiaries of the President’s pardon and clemency. The list was released in a press statement on Saturday by Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
The list included late environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, nationalist Herbert Macaulay, Major General Mamman Vatsa, and Maryam Sanda, who was sentenced to death for killing her husband, amongst others.
In a post via 𝕏, Melaye alleged that among those pardoned were about 70 individuals convicted for drug-related offences.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) chieftain described Tinubu’s action as “unprecedented in history,” claiming that no other government in the world had ever granted such a large-scale pardon to convicted drug offenders.
He wrote, “Pardon granted 70 drug lords by President Tinubu is unprecedented in history. Checks have revealed that it has never happened in the history of the world. My advice to the President is to scrap the NDLEA. His action has made a beautiful nonsensical of all the efforts of the agency since inception.”
Meanwhile, the ADC has condemned Tinubu’s recent decision to grant presidential pardons to dozens of convicted murderers, drug traffickers and smugglers.
In a statement on Sunday signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC described the action as “pathetic and a national disgrace.”
It warned that the move undermines Nigeria’s anti-drug efforts, encourages crime, and further tarnishes Nigeria’s image in the eyes of the world.
