President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has granted clemency to Major Suleiman Alabi Akubo, a Nigerian Army officer who was sentenced to life imprisonment for selling over 7,000 stolen army weapons to Niger Delta militants.
Akubo, now 62, was amongst 175 individuals who just lately acquired a presidential pardon and different types of clemency authorized by the Nationwide Council of State.
In accordance to Bayo Onanuga, the president’s particular adviser on info and technique, Tinubu decreased Akubo’s sentence from life imprisonment to 20 years, citing the officer’s “good conduct and regret.”
Akubo was convicted in 2008 by a army court docket in Kaduna alongside 5 different troopers for selling weapons from the military’s depots on the Command and Employees Faculty, Jaji, and the One Base Ordnance, Kaduna. The weapons — together with assault rifles, submachine weapons, and rocket-propelled grenades — had been bought to the Motion for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
The stolen arms had been valued at about ₦100m on the time. The trial choose, Bala Usara, famous that the patrons included Sunny Okah, brother of MEND chief Henry Okah.
In 2016, MEND claimed that the federal authorities had agreed to evaluation Akubo’s and others’ life sentences underneath the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
