By Olugbenga Salami
A former chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr Jackson Lekan Ojo, has defended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over discontent on the list of persons recently granted presidential pardon.
Ojo, in a statement appealed to Nigerians not to blame the President, saying that a committee headed by the Attorney General of the Federation was inaugurated to compile the list of convicts the deserve presidential pardon.
He maintained that despite the fact that he is not a fan of President Tinubu, he will defend him in this issue as the Nigerian leader cannot be everywhere at same time since he has already delegated a committee to handle issue of amnesty to convicts.
The statement reads: “Something is agitating the minds of Nigerians across and it is the issue of amnesty granted to some prisoners by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
“The Presidential pardon has elicited a lot of noise and agitations but I studied it critically and I was on a television program and I defended Mr President for the first time in my life.
“This time the fault is not of Mr President. There is a committee, they call it Presidential Committee on Prerogative of Mercy. It was inaugurated January 17, 2025 and headed by the Attorney General of the Federation and so many eminent personalities.
“It is the responsibility of these people to compile the list of those persons that were wrongfully sentenced, those people that were wrongfully prosecuted, and there were persons that were sent to five years imprisonment where as before the sentence they spent over 15 years behind the bars.
“All those people people have spent beyond the years they would have spent in prison if they were convicted timely without delay.
“Those are the kind of persons that I think Mr President weighed the power inherent in his office to grant them pardon.
“Prerogative of mercy is enshrined in our constitution, but this Committee headed by the Attorney General of the Federation and other eminent citizens they must have gone as a committee and presented the list before Mr President.
“Mr President will just study it and append his signature to make it effective. But is it the duty of Mr President to go to the various courts where these people were convicted?
“Is it the duty of Mr President to call on the Police or DSS that prosecuted them before they were sentenced?
“It is not the duty of Mr President. Mr President cannot be present every time everywhere. No President in the world is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscience.
“This Committee is supposed to do due diligence in whatever document they present to Mr President.”
