President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his minders at this point don’t need to be told that whatever they do will always be placed under a magnifying glass to better assess where they may have strayed from the well-beaten path into the bush. They stir extreme reactions from both their supporters and detractors alike. It doesn’t look like they remembered this when the president signed off on the list of the beneficiaries of presidential clemency in the latest exercise of his powers for the prerogative of mercy.

It is a riotous list of Nigerians guilty of some of the most heinous crimes, including murder, kidnapping, drug peddling and the worst kinds of financial malfeasance. Approving that list was a damnable act of self-sabotage. Not even the president’s political enemies, some of who could not be bothered about what becomes of him or the administration he leads, could have drawn up a more execrable roll-call. 

Which is why the president owe it to himself to demand explanations about the circumstances under which many of the names on that list got there. Also, should the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, who ought to know more than enough about how that list was put together. He should either demand or provide some explanation. It is proper that he has been the one saddled with the unpleasant task of telling Nigerians what the administration is doing to clean up the mess with which they have assaulted our sense of judgement. I am saying this in the belief that neither the president nor the AGF had prior knowledge of that list. It is hard to believe that either of them or anyone close to them could have been so brazen as to assume they could execute the decision that list required without Nigerians demanding an explanation. 

The bar of governance may have been placed so low that nothing, no matter how disgusting, can be put beyond government operatives who behave as if they are accountable to nobody. But even if Nigerians fail to say something, estranged friends of the government who now constitute the opposition, will not let the disgrace slide. Of course, this won’t be because they are seriously outraged. They would as likely as not do the same thing should they have the opportunity. Some of them were mute when unearned privileges in the name of presidential pardons were extended to their friends and cronies under past administrations. Their present complaint is not heartfelt. The shame of the latest presidential pardon is for them only an opportunity to lob yet another attack at the APC-led government and see how well and for how long it would stick. 

Otherwise, most of them suffer from a debilitating form of Tinubu Derangement Syndrome, the Nigerian strain of the disease afflicting opponents of America’s Donald Trump, especially since his return to the White House. Like Trump’s opponents, the mere mention of Tinubu’s name gives some of them bellyache. He can’t do anything right since he beat them to their game in the 2023 presidential election. Thus, Tinubu Derangement Syndrome is a reality. It is why nothing he does is ever right in the eyes of his opponents wherever they operate from. That President Tinubu will know this and still allow himself to be led into granting pardon to some of the people whose names were announced recently proves one of two things: either his government is deliberating seeking a dirty brawl with Nigerians or saboteurs operating from inside the government have been at work. 

As I cannot see any reason why the government would want to aggravate Nigerians  have been at their tether’s end trying to cope with the economic hardship that is the fallout of the Tinubu reforms, I’m inclined to see this as an error of commission perpetrated by individuals or groups within the government. Anyone connected to the making of that list should henceforth be viewed with suspicion in that government. This shame is one too many, coming not long after the minor errors that were made with the list of honorees for national honours earlier in the year. To be sure, mistakes like that are not peculiar to the Bola Tinubu administration. Without looking further into the past, the Muhammadu Buhari government had more recently conferred national honours on deceased individuals. Dead people were appointed into public offices under that government, which is an error that the Tinubu administration has also committed. Even when these appear like versions of what politicians do when they fill their registers of voters or members with names of dead people, foreign celebrities or utterly fictitious identities, this administration takes the cake for the worst performance so far in this regard. 

The only redeeming thing that this government has done in the situation it has brought itself, is the clarification by the AGF that the list is being reviewed. Whatever this gesture is, whether a mere afterthought or a face-saving act, it is far better than doing nothing and have history record such egregious act of moral failing against the name of a president that has been accused of possibly all known crimes, real or imagined. Without the blemish of granting presidential pardon to the obviously undeserving lot, it was an otherwise credible list that showed the readiness of the government to listen to the voice of Nigerians. It was corrective in the manner it responded to the complaints of Nigerians about the treatment meted to the nine Ogoni environmentalists and their four opponents. 

After correcting the exclusion of the four men from those awarded national honours, the president has now granted them clemency. The pardons have not only corrected the exclusion of the four men following the posthumous conferment of national honours on them, it has wiped off any suggestion of culpability in the events that led, respectively, to the mob or judicial execution of both the Ogoni 4 and the Ogoni 9. Nigerians must remember for how long we have lamented the fate that befell Ogoniland with the murder of their children in addition to the despoliation of their environment. It was a pain that won’t go but which the Bola Tinubu administration has assuaged with the national recognition of the sacrifice of their leaders notwithstanding where they stood in the painful saga that divided them.

There is nothing to be ashamed of in correcting what has been generally acknowledged as a misstep. The problem is to double down on it and risk the severe judgement of history. Going forward, it costs nothing for a government to scrutinise closely any list of potential honorees or beneficiaries of appointments before an announcement is made. After all, what are the numerous Special Assistants and Assistants to Special Assistants doing?