Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, describing it as a government that “thinks after acting” following the recent controversy surrounding a revoked presidential pardon list.
Atiku’s remarks came after the Presidency released — and swiftly rescinded — a list of 140 inmates who had earlier benefited from Tinubu’s presidential clemency. The list reportedly included convicted drug traffickers, kidnappers, and other hardened criminals.
The President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, had on Wednesday announced that Tinubu had withdrawn the clemency, reversing his earlier approval. Among those initially listed was Maryam Sanda, whose death sentence for the 2020 murder of her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, had been commuted to a 12-year prison term.
Reacting through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications, Mr Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the President’s reversal of his own decision was not an act of wisdom but “an act of shame.”
“Once again, Nigerians have witnessed a government that doesn’t lead — it reacts. President Bola Tinubu has cancelled his own pardon for drug traffickers, kidnappers, and other hardened criminals, but only after Nigerians shouted loud enough to wake him from his moral slumber,” Shaibu said in a statement made available to the press.
He further queried the process that led to the initial decision, demanding transparency and accountability from the Presidency.
“Who thought it was a brilliant idea to reward crime and betray justice? Who compiled the list of beneficiaries? What criteria justified freeing kidnappers and drug offenders? Where was the Attorney-General when this absurdity was conceived? These are the questions every Nigerian deserves answers to,” he stated.
Shaibu accused the government of a recurring pattern of “policy recklessness” — acting impulsively and reversing decisions only after public outrage.
“This pattern has become too familiar — announce the unthinkable, watch the country erupt, then hurriedly reverse course as if governance is a game of trial and error,” he added.
He maintained that the incident exposed what he described as a lack of foresight and empathy at the highest level of governance.
“A presidential pardon is a sacred constitutional power meant to reflect justice, mercy, and national interest — not to reward impunity or test public patience,” he said.
Atiku, through his aide, called on the government to publish the full list of intended beneficiaries and the officials who authorised the controversial clemency, insisting that Nigerians deserved full disclosure.
“Until then, this cancellation is nothing but damage control — too little, too late,” Shaibu concluded.
