Ideal Pardon Conditions

There is a warped logic in government’s explanation that former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, deserves pardon

The pardon granted a former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, and others on 9 March 2013, by the Council of State in Nigeria, is generating an acrimonious debate.

The Jonathan government knew that Alarms would blow if it gave Alamieyeseigha preferential treatment alone; it decided to give him many other travelling companions on the mercy train. So, other beneficiaries of the pardon were: Shettima Bulama, who was arrested for misappropriating funds of Bank of the North which he headed; military officers who Abacha roped into a fake putsch – Lt. Gen. Oladipo Diya, a past Chief of General Staff; Major-General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Major-General AbdulKareem Adisa, Major Bello Magaji, Mohammed Lima Biu and Major Seun Fadipe.

While the Council of State is the hand of Esau in this matter, the real voice of Jacob is President Goodluck Jonathan’s. For this reason, his government has become a butt of snide remarks within and outside Nigeria.

But government was not ready to leave the criticisms unchallenged. Jonathan’s spin doctors referred to former US President Bill Clinton who gave out over 140 presidential pardons, including the one he gave to the scoundrel, Marc Rich, on 20 January 2001. Rich, an international businessman, was, as the Presidency image makers wrote, indicted for evading more than $48 million in taxes, and charged with 51 counts of tax fraud, as well as running illegal oil deals with Iran during the 1979-1980 hostage crisis. They cited also the case of the former US President’s brother, Roger Clinton, whom the former pardoned after a conviction for cocaine possession.

Nigerian commentators reminded the Presidency that these were some of the acts for which Clinton was heavily crtiticised. And must every mistake in the US become a moral benchmark in Nigeria? Analysts asked, adding that if Nigeria should copy anything from America, it must be something worthy.Doyin Okupe, one of the President’s spokesmen, defended the government, saying the decision was not his alone but a collective one by the Council of State. He said the Council, which comprises the President, Vice-President, all former presidents, former chief justices of Nigeria, the leadership of the National Assembly and all state governors, does “not take decisions on impulse but rather after due considerations of vital issues connected with taking such decisions”.

He put in another logic that the very idea of a pardon shows that it was meant not for the innocent but for those who might have been found guilty of some offences and have either finished serving their sentences or in the process of serving those sentences. The framers of the Nigerian Constitution, as Okupe reasoned, envisaged the need for some ex-convicts to be re-integrated into society, especially if they have shown “penitence and willingness to contribute positively to societal growth”.

Here lies the rub! Implicit in Okupe’s statement is that Alamieyeseigha had served his punishment and that he is now as contrite as the Prodigal Son. This, for a long time, will be a debate among theologians, ethical relativists and adherents of the philosophy of categorical imperative.

But biblical scholars have begun theirs. To them, receiving forgiveness after committing a sin requires genuine repentance and turning a new leaf. That, according to a Pentecostal pastor in Lagos, was the difference between Peter and Judas Iscariot, and Kings Saul and David. As the pastor explained to TheNEWS, Peter denied Jesus three times but he became the rock upon which Christ built his church. Peter exhibited remorse. He repented. But Judas, the treasurer who was always dipping his hand in the common kitty, betrayed his master and committed suicide. There is no record of his repentance, explained the pastor. He reasoned further that while Saul was always trying to rationalise his sins without genuine repentance, David, who went as far as killing Uriah, the husband of his mistress, became a great king because he knew how to always say sorry to God and walk right afterwards. The pastor even added that not all sins could be forgiven, “especially, sin against the Holy Spirit”. He challenged the magazine to go and read the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who sold their own land, decided to donate the proceeds to the then church but lied about the correct value. The two, he said, died!

Whether or not these biblical parallels hold water, many analysts believe that Alamieyeseigha is not contrite at all and he does not deserve pardon. The former governor was nabbed in the UK for laundering $3.2 million. He succeeded at evaporating from Britain and reappearing in Nigeria – a feat that could, one day, become the plot and theme of a movie script. Does that show a man who exhibited remorse? Absolutely not, a commentator argued. Alamieyeseigha was subsequently sentenced by a Federal High Court in Nigeria.

In fact, Britain and the United States are still after the neck of the former Bayelsa governor. The Punch quoted diplomatic sources as saying that the former Bayelsa governor risks arrest “because the international investigation of his involvement in corruption and money laundering is still on course”. This involves the governments of Britain, United States, South Africa, Bahamas and Seychelles as well as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank, under the Stolen Assets Recovery, STAR, initiative.

According to STAR: “Between the start of his period of office in May 1999, to late 2005, Alamieyeseigha accumulated (outside Nigeria) known properties, bank accounts, investments and cash exceeding £10m in value. His portfolio of foreign assets included accounts with five banks in the UK and further accounts with banks in Cyprus, Denmark and the United States; four London properties acquired for a total of £4.8m; a Cape Town harbour penthouse acquired for almost £1m, possible assets in the United States, and almost £1m in cash stored in one of his London properties. Some of the foreign assets were held in his name and that of his wife, but the bulk of them were held by companies and trusts incorporated in the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, South Africa, and Seychelles.”

Until the cases against Alams are dispensed with, analysts believe that he does not fit into Okupe’s mould of those who have been “found guilty of some offences or have either finished serving their sentences or in the process of serving those sentences…”

His case, as another commentator explained, would be like that of Manuel Noriega, a former president of Panama who was flown to the US and sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1992 for racketeering and drug offences. In 2010, he was extradited to France to face further criminal charges. Analysts, therefore, wanted Alamieyeseigha to face these foreign charges and come back to apply for pardon or he may be lucky to be given parole over there, especially in the US.

—Ademola Adegbamigbe