An Appraisal of the Power of Pardon under Nigerian Law: Lessons from Other Jurisdictions

Abstract

The exercise of the presidential pardon power has generated periodic controversies and elicited various reform proposals in Nigeria. The power is often exercised in ways that are clearly at odds with the Nigerian Society’s interest, including granting pardons to facilitate narrow partisan interest and other personal ends. Sections 175 and 212 of the Nigerian Constitution, which codifies in Nigeria the sovereign pardon powers available in Britain, worsens the problem and fails to provide guidelines or standards for exercising the power. The need to rationalize and curb pardons has raised significant concerns among legal practitioners as to whether the pardon power is a pre- or post-conviction instrument, with the Nigerian judiciary weighing in on the side of the post-conviction argument as a way of making pardons fit unto a retributive and equitable system of distributing justice to offenders. Using doctrinal research method, this paper examined the total amplitude of the power within the narrow confines of this riposte provoking issue, especially in the light of the text of the Constitution and the justification or otherwise of the position of the Nigerian judiciary. The paper also adopted the comparative approach by critically examining the position obtainable in the U.K. and USA on the pardon powers of the head of state, and concluded that Nigeria must follow the tradition prevalent in these Common Law countries where the full effect of the power is limitless to the pre- or post-conviction stage.