Following yesterday’s landmark revelation by SaharaReporters that several of the national figures granted pardon by President Goodluck Jonathan this week had already been pardoned as far back as 14 years ago, we have obtained another document which confirms that Musa Yar'Adua, the former Chief of General Staff to General Olusegun Obasanjo, was indeed pardoned as of 1998 by then military head of state, General Abdusalami Alhaji Abubakar.
Following yesterday’s landmark revelation by SaharaReporters that several of the national figures granted pardon by President Goodluck Jonathan this week had already been pardoned as far back as 14 years ago, we have obtained another document which confirms that Musa Yar'Adua, the former Chief of General Staff to General Olusegun Obasanjo, was indeed pardoned as of 1998 by then military head of state, General Abdusalami Alhaji Abubakar.
The document, also gazetted in 1998, granted pardon to Musa, the older brother of deceased Nigerian president, Umaru Yar'Adua, along with Obasanjo himself. The pardon was activated with immediate effect to enable Obasanjo, who had previously been military leader between 1976 and 1979, to participate in the political transition that got him back into national leadership in 1999.
The new document is another pointer to the desperation that attended the controversial pardon granted Jonathan’s mentor DSP Alamieseigha, the former governor of Bayelsa State who was convicted for money laundering offences in 2006. It underlines the short cuts that were taken by Mr. Jonathan in the effort to surround Alamieyeseigha’s name with those of other Nigerians who were thought to be in need of pardon, or whose previous pardon might not be noticed.
The US government has condemned the state pardon granted Mr. Alamieyeseigha, stating that the act set back the war on corruption in Nigeria.
Last year the United States targeted Alamieyeseigha in civil asset forfeiture actions. In June 2012, the kleptocracy initiative recovered some $400,000 from the corrupt former governor in monies being held at a brokerage account with Fidelity Investments in Boston, Massachusetts. Alamieyeseigha remains a wanted man in the United Kingdom, which he fled in 2005 dressed as a woman.
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