Nigeria’s Supreme Court on Friday set aside President Bola Tinubu’s recent clemency for Maryam Sanda and reaffirmed the death sentence she was given for killing her husband.
Sanda was convicted in January 2020 by a Federal Capital Territory high court for stabbing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, at their home in Abuja in 2017.
The Court of Appeal had earlier affirmed the guilty verdict and death sentence.
In October, President Tinubu had included Sanda on a list of convicts granted mercy and her sentence was recorded as reduced to 12 years in an official gazette — a move that sparked public outrage and strong criticism from various political figures and social commentators.
The family of the late Bilyaminu Bello had also condemned the earlier clemency as “the worst possible injustice.”
But on Friday the Supreme Court overturned that development, saying the pardon could not stand while Sanda’s appeal and related legal questions were before the courts.
The justices dismissed her latest appeal and restored the earlier death sentence.
The Supreme Court’s judgment is likely to reopen national debate about executive pardons, victims’ rights and how clemency decisions are handled in high-profile criminal cases.
