The Council of State has endorsed the presidential prerogative of mercy for 175 individuals, including renowned national figures such as Herbert Macaulay and Maj.-Gen. Mamman Vatsa (retd), as well as members of the Ogoni Nine and Ogoni Four.
The approval followed a meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, on Thursday.Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), presented the President’s recommendations, drawn from the report of the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy. Of the 175 beneficiaries, 82 received full pardons, 65 had their sentences reduced, and seven death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.Addressing journalists after the meeting,
Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani said, “This decision underscores President Tinubu’s deep commitment to justice and correctional reform.”Herbert Macaulay, celebrated as the “father of Nigerian nationalism,” was twice convicted by colonial authorities in Lagos. In 1913, he was imprisoned over alleged misappropriation of estate funds—a charge historians have long viewed as politically motivated. In 1928, he was convicted of sedition in the infamous “Gunpowder Plot” case, stemming from articles published in his *Lagos Daily News* during the Eleko agitation, and sentenced to six months of hard labor.
Maj.-Gen. Mamman Vatsa, a poet and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory under the Babangida regime, was executed in 1986 after a secret military tribunal found him guilty of treason in an alleged coup plot against then-military ruler Ibrahim Babangida.
His controversial trial has since fueled persistent calls for a posthumous pardon.While the complete list of beneficiaries has yet to be made public, a source at the meeting confirmed that both Macaulay and Vatsa were among those granted clemency.T
he Council also ratified the appointments of Dr. Aminu Yusuf as Chairman of the National Population Commission and Tonge Bularafa as Federal Commissioner representing Yobe State, both receiving unanimous approval.
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