The Forgotten Ones: A Cry for Clemency
Dr. R. M. Adisa
When the news broke that the President had granted pardons to several high-profile individuals, many hailed it as an act of statesmanship, a gesture of mercy. And the President is praised for this, but in the crowded corners of the nation’s prisons, where the air is thick with despair and forgotten prayers, thousands of lowly men, women, and children sat unmoved. For them, mercy had once again passed by, leaving only silence and the dull ache of neglect.
In every democracy, including Nigeria, the prerogative of mercy, the power to forgive and grant pardon , is enshrined in the constitution. It is meant to balance justice with compassion, to acknowledge that punishment alone does not heal society. Yet, over time, this noble power has been wielded unevenly. Those with power, wealth, or political connection often find their paths cleared through presidential or gubernatorial clemency, while the poor and voiceless languish in overcrowded cells for offences so minor they would scarcely merit a fine in fairer circumstances.
Inmates accused of petty, non-violent offences , such as street hawking, begging, minor theft, or traffic infractions , often endure prolonged detention without trial. Many were arrested without legal representation, unable to afford bail or even understand the charges against them. A young man once whispered through the bars of his cell, “They said my hearing would be in two weeks, but it has been many months.” His story is not unique; it is the quiet anthem of thousands trapped between injustice and indifference.
Across the country, correctional facilities burst beyond capacity, at least we heard the Judges, government agencies, and correctional officers saying this, some holding more than one and a half times their intended number. Cells built for twenty now house forty or fifty, men and women lying shoulder to shoulder in dim, airless rooms. The stench of decay mingles with the murmur of hopelessness. In these conditions, disease spreads like wildfire, and dignity becomes a forgotten word. The poor bear the heaviest weight, while the powerful, often convicted of far greater crimes, walk free with a stroke of a pen.
The Nigerian Correctional Service itself has acknowledged that many minors are unlawfully detained in adult prisons, victims of systemic collapse. The nation’s juvenile facilities are either underfunded, understaffed, or entirely defunct. Some children grow into adulthood behind bars, their innocence eroded by a system that should have protected them.
To grant clemency only to the mighty is to mock the very essence of mercy. True forgiveness, as envisioned by the Constitution, should extend to those who err out of need, not greed, those whose crimes are born of hunger, not corruption. If men who have looted the public treasury can be forgiven in the name of national reconciliation, then what of the market woman jailed for hawking to feed her children, or the young man imprisoned for loitering without charge? Must their poverty be a life sentence?
The United Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners , the Mandela Rules , remind us that justice must preserve humanity, not crush it. But for the poor detainee, time itself becomes a punishment. With no lawyer to speak, no family to visit, and no system to hear them, their existence fades into quiet oblivion.
Mercy should not be a privilege of class but a right of conscience. It is time to remember the forgotten ones, the voiceless, the poor, the petty offenders whose lives hang suspended in a limbo of neglect.
Let mercy find its way to the lowly, before despair finds its way to us all.
