Following the release of the final list of presidential pardons for 2025, a scramble akin to the late 19th century European Scramble for Africa immediately commenced in Nigeria. Family members, friends, busybody activists as well as politicians hoping to reap political benefits immediately began moves to ensure that their convicted relatives or friends make it into next year’s presidential pardon roll. Next year’s pardon list will be much kinder than this year’s because it will come just before presidential elections, hence the early stampede to get into it.
I hear that a campaign has already started under Lagos’ flyover bridges to get a pardon for the cannibal Clifford Nwa Orji. Police arrested Orji in February 1999 after a missing woman, Awawu, was discovered near death at his home under the bridge. Fresh and cooked human body parts and skulls were also discovered. Orji was the indicted for serial killings, kidnappings and the sale of human body parts. He later confessed at a news conference to kidnapping, murder and cannibalism. He said he and his accomplice had “been eating human meat for the past seven years… It is our culture to eat human meat.” He was remanded in Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison, was never tried in court because prison officials said he was mentally ill, and died in prison in 2012. His family is therefore scrambling to seek a post-humous pardon, since he was never tried in 13 years even though he had children to look after.
I hear that family members in Owerri have assembled a team of senior lawyers to prepare a petition seeking a post-humous pardon for Chief Vincent Duru, who was executed in 2016 for a murder committed 20 years earlier. In September 1996, ugly riots broke out in Owerri after a gardener at the Otokoto Hotel was caught with a human head. It turned out to be that of 11-year-old schoolboy Anthony Ikechukwu Okoronkwo, a groundnut hawker whom he lured into the hotel, drugged and decapitated him, then removed some body parts and was on his way to deliver it to leaders of the Black Scorpion secret society when a commercial motorcyclist saw blood dripping from the bag. The arrested man died two days later in police custody, which fueled rumours of a sinister plot.
Investigation and confessions led to the arrest of Otokoto Hotel owner Chief Vincent Duru, Chief Leonard Unaogu and seven others. After a long trial, they were sentenced to death in 2003 and were executed in 2016. The family is now demanding for pardon because Vincent Duru showed remorse during his 13 years on death row and was a model prisoner. He should therefore feature in the 2026 presidential pardon roll.
Another team of senior lawyers is very busy in Taraba State, preparing a petition to seek pardon for Alhaji Hamisu Bala, alias Wadumen. Hamisu once told reporters that Wadumen means “What do you mean?” He was a kidnap kingpin in Taraba State who was accused of supplying weapons to North Eastern terrorists as well as cattle rustlers. When a special police squad arrested him in August 2019, the policemen were ambushed at a military check point, many of them were killed on the orders of an Army Captain who spoke 190 times on the phone to Wadumen. Wadumen’s leg chains were removed and he escaped. He was later re-arrested in Kano State. He has been standing trial since 2020. The petitioners say he had since enrolled for a course at National Open University [NOUN], so he deserves a pardon.
Another hot petition is being prepared in Lagos, seeking urgent pardon for Reverend Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, alias Reverend King, founder and former General Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly. Only recently, full-page colour ads were placed in newspapers to celebrate his birthday, even though he is on death row. Reverend King was arrested in 2006 and charged with the murder of a church member, Ann Uzoh. Witnesses at his trial said Reverend King set Ann ablaze after accusing her of fornication. He was reported to have said at the trial, “I am a preacher. I know that the spirit of witchcraft is against the Almighty God. If somebody is a liar, he is bewitching God. I don’t condone lie. Dr. King does not condone sin. I flog a lot. I have canes…” He was sentenced to death in 2007 and Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death sentence by hanging in February 2016. Since he has since shown remorse and is even preaching in prison, his death sentence should be commuted to six months’ community service in his church.
Federal Ministry of Justice [the new location for the Prerogative of Mercy Committee], please prepare to receive another petition on behalf of the Offa robbers. Ayoade Akinnibosun, Azeez Salahudeen, Niyi Ogundiran, Ibikunle Ogunleye and Adeola Abraham were sentenced to death having been found guilty for the violent robbing of five commercial banks in Offa Local Government area of Kwara State in 2018. Thirty-two people were killed in the robbery, including nine policemen, probably the bloodiest bank robbery in Nigerian history. Though convicted of conspiracy, culpable homicide, illegal possession of firearms and armed robbery, they have since turned out to be model prisoners and have all enrolled for various online courses at the National Open University. I hear that parents of the deceased cops have sent petitions in support of the plea for mercy, so we don’t expect the Inspector General of Police to oppose it. The sixth suspect, Michael Adikwu, a retired police officer, died in custody before the trial commenced and should be post-humously pardoned.
Lawyers and civil society activists in Benin are preparing a petition to seek pardon for Laurence “The Law” Nomanyagbon Anini. Following a series of daredevil armed robbery operations in the old Bendel State in mid-1980s, Anini and his powerful second-in-command, Monday Osunbor, were arrested at a girlfriend’s house on East Circular Road, Benin City. Newspapers alleged that it was the girlfriend that betrayed him, which is another ground of petition. The petitioners are now saying that Anini’s case was prejudiced because days before his arrest, then military ruler General Babangida confronted the Inspector General of Police on live television and demanded, “My friend, where is Anini?” After their capture in December 1986, Anini together with Monday Osunbor, Friday Ofege, Smallie, Henry Ekponwan, Eweka and Alhaji Zed Zed were sentenced to death by firing squad and were publicly executed in March 1987. Anini’s famous official car, a white Santana vehicle, has not been returned to his family. The pardon should expressly order for the vehicle’s return to Anini’s heirs.
Right there in the forests bordering Zamfara and Niger states, another petition is being drafted, seeking advanced pardon for Abubakar Abdullahi, alias Dogo Gide, alleged by newspapers to be a “notorious bandit who has committed several crimes against humanity, including kidnapping, raping, cattle rustling and armed robbery, destruction of many villages and kidnap of the Federal Government College Yauri schoolgirls.” The grounds for the petition are that Dogo Gide operates in ungoverned spaces, which is not his fault because no one told Nigerian governments to leave thick bushes unattended to. Besides, the Forest Guards that government is about to set up, Dogo Gide can help them with training, bush navigation, riverine reconnaissance and multi-lingual communication in local languages.
Next year’s pardon roll must feature Dr Ishola Oyenusi, the great Lagos robber of the early 1970s whose biggest achievement was the 1971 WAHUM factory robbery in Ikeja, where he stole 28,000 pounds [there was no naira at that time]. Oyenusi and six members of his gang were executed at the Bar Beach in Lagos in September 1971, which was a breach of their human rights for which they deserve a post-humous pardon.
I hear that lawyers, wearing red caps, were coming from Kano to submit a petition to pardon Abdumalik Tanko, proprietor of Noble Kids Academy, Nasarawa, Kano. In December 2021, Tanko kidnapped 5-year old Hanifa Abubakar, a pupil of his own school, the only daughter of her parents, hid her in his house, tried to extract a ransom of N6 million from her parents but when she recognised him, he made her to drink yoghurt laced with rat poison. He then buried her in a shallow grave inside his school premises. He and his accomplice Hashim Isyaku were sentenced to death in 2022 but they have been model inmates on death row and like Maryam Sanda, they also have children to take care of.
National Union of Electricity Employees [NUEE] will soon bring forth a petition to demand pardon for the NEPA Eleven. In October 1988, on the flimsy ground that they plunged the country into darkness as part of a strike by NEPA senior staff union, the dictatorial Babangida regime had them tried by a special military tribunal for treason and economic sabotage. They were sentenced to life in jail. Although IBB later pardoned them, they need a presidential pardon because it is more constitutional.
I don’t know if it is true, but I hear that as soon as they settle down, the new military service chiefs will seek a pardon for Capt. Dauda Usman and Sgt. Clement Yildar. On September 30, 1979, a day before it handed over power to civilians, the Supreme Military Council headed by General Olusegun Obasanjo placed one final ad in all the newspapers saying: “Wanted For Treason and Murder. Capt. Dauda Usman and Sgt. Clement Yildar.” They were accused of complicity in the February 1976 abortive coup and the killing of Head of State General Murtala Mohammed. If they had been found then, they would have been executed alongside Lt Col Bukar Suka Dimka and Major General Iliya Bisalla. They have been wanted for 49 years now but were never found. The Service Chiefs apparently think it is time to grant them a pardon and stop wasting the time of Defence Intelligence Agency [DIA] in a fruitless search.
