President Bola Tinubu has granted presidential pardons to Herbert Macaulay, a key figure in Nigeria’s independence movement, Major General Mamman Vatsa retd., and 173 others, following the recommendation of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy.
Macaulay who was convicted twice by colonial authorities in Lagos including a 1913 conviction for alleged misappropriation of estate funds was among several posthumously pardoned figures. The fairness of his conviction has long been questioned by historians.
Mamman Vatsa, a poet and former FCT Minister during the Babangida regime, was executed in 1986 for an alleged coup plot. His pardon comes nearly four decades later, following a review by the National Council of State, which approved the clemency during its meeting in Abuja.
