There are moments when a nation must pause — not because of an earthquake, but because of the tremor in its moral compass. The recent resurrection of the Maryam Sanda case is one such moment. It’s as though history, tired of being ignored, decided to tap us on the shoulder and say, “Are you people still like this?”
We all remember the story. A young man, Bilyaminu Bello, full of promise and pedigree, was killed by his wife, Maryam — a woman as privileged as she was temperamental. The courtrooms did their weary dance, the judges weighed evidence, and justice — slow, limping, but deliberate — arrived. She was sentenced. Nigerians sighed. For once, it felt like the law had remembered the poor, even when the accused was rich.
But in Nigeria, justice is never truly final; it’s merely pending until someone powerful makes a phone call. And so, like a Nollywood sequel no one asked for, Maryam’s name suddenly appeared on the list of presidential pardons. Somewhere between the Ministry of Justice and the corridors of influence, mercy was manufactured.
Still, Nigerians, weary of outrage, shrugged. “Allah’s mercy is boundless,” some said. Others whispered what we all knew — that this mercy was not divine, but well-connected.
Yet, what truly tore the thin veil of dignity remaining in this tragedy was not the pardon itself but the circus that followed. A press conference — yes, a press conference! — featuring Alhaji Garba Sanda, father of the convict, and Alhaji Ahmed Bello Isa, the long-lost “biological father” of the victim.
It was a sight that would make even Shakespeare weep. If the Bard had witnessed it, he might have said, “There are more things in Nigerian tragedy than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Let’s begin with Garba Sanda — the man who mistook fatherhood for public relations. It takes a special kind of detachment to think the nation wants a family briefing from the father of a convicted murderer. One would imagine his time was better spent in quiet reflection, thanking Allah for unearned mercy and seeking forgiveness for the blood on his household’s hands. But no. Cameras were summoned, microphones polished, and statements rehearsed.
He sat there like a man trying to audition for the role of “Father of the Year” in a badly written drama. It would have been comical if it wasn’t grotesque. He wanted to convince us that his daughter’s freedom was not a scandal but a triumph of compassion. In truth, it was the latest episode in a long-running series titled “How Privilege Buries Consequence.”
If fatherhood were an exam, Garba Sanda would need to retake it with a tutor. A father is meant to raise a conscience, not a press release. To teach humility, not manipulation. Instead of remorse, we saw choreography; instead of gratitude, we got grandstanding.
And then came the second act: the sudden appearance of Alhaji Ahmed Bello Isa, who materialized like a ghost with perfect timing. For over four decades, this man was a footnote in his own son’s biography. He missed every chapter — birth, childhood, schooling, weddings, the tragic end, even the burial. But when the flashbulbs went off, he reappeared. Truly, some fathers are like comets — rare, brief, and mostly seen when the sky is on fire.
He sat beside Garba, nodding solemnly, declaring forgiveness for a woman he barely knew. One couldn’t help but marvel at this man’s newfound spirituality. If forgiveness could be monetized, perhaps he’d finally discovered his calling. Nigerians, of course, laughed — not out of cruelty, but disbelief. We have seen many absurdities, but a long-absent father offering public absolution for his murdered son? That was a first.
History offers warnings for men like these. When Pontius Pilate washed his hands, it didn’t make him clean — it only made him memorable for cowardice. When Macbeth thought he could scrub blood with power, his hands only got redder. And when those in authority choose image over integrity, history waits — quietly sharpening its quill.
The Sanda press conference will be remembered not for what it achieved, but for what it revealed. It showed how privilege breeds audacity and how audacity erases shame. It exposed a truth older than the pyramids — that when men lose conscience, they begin to mistake noise for honour.
If I were advising the Sanda family, I would have recommended silence. Silence can heal where words only wound. A simple, private note would have sufficed: “We thank Allah for His mercy and pray for the soul of BilyaminuBello.” That would have been noble. Instead, they chose to perform repentance on stage, forgetting that repentance, like prayer, loses its meaning when it seeks applause.
But perhaps they thought Nigerians would buy their version of forgiveness. After all, in this country, with enough money and the right connections, you can rebrand almost anything — from reputations to regimes. What they didn’t realize is that conscience is not for sale, and truth does not respond to press statements.
Somewhere, one imagines the late Bilyaminu watching all this from beyond — the men who failed him in life now failing him in memory. His killer walks free. His father never stood by him. And the father of his killer lectures the world about forgiveness. If irony had a heartbeat, it would be beating furiously in that press hall.
There’s a lesson here, buried beneath the absurdity. When a society starts admiring cunning more than character, it begins to rot from the inside. When we excuse evil because it wears perfume and drives a Prado, we become accomplices in our own moral decay.
History will not remember who granted the pardon or who arranged the press conference. It will remember the stench of hypocrisy that followed.
And yet, amid the noise, there remains one quiet truth: no one can lobby Allah. You can bribe a clerk, you can charm a minister, you can even call a President. But you cannot negotiate with the Day of Reckoning. There are no press passes there, no handlers, no photographers. Only truth — raw, unfiltered, eternal.
So let Garba Sanda keep his microphones. Let Ahmed Bello Isa keep his sudden fatherhood. Let them both tell their stories. History will tell hers too — and she is a far better writer.
Because at the end of every tragedy, there is a moral reckoning. And when the curtain falls on this one, the audience will not applaud. They will whisper the only question that matters: “How does a man raise privilege, yet fail to raise conscience?”
That, perhaps, is the true tragedy.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
