Plans for the prosecution of three people who were discovered to have been involved in changing the presidential pardon list for 2022 have been completed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, the former governors of the Plateau and Taraba, were two of the many people whose names were on the list of those eligible for pardons.
The three people were discovered to have been involved in changing the report of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy (PACPM) to include the name of a jailed former Managing Director (MD) of a bank, whose case was never taken into consideration by the committee. This is according to a report of the investigation by the EFCC.
The Acting Director of the Administration of Criminal Justice and Reforms Department (ACJRD), Mrs. Leticia Ayoola-Daniels, and another Federal Ministry of Justice employee were both cleared in the EFCC report.
An agent of the former bank MD, a senior employee in the PACPM secretariat, and an assistant chief state counsel in the Federal Ministry of Justice are the three people charged in the EFCC report.
The Power of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) requested that members of the PACPM be investigated for suspicions of conspiracy, abuse of office, bribery, and corruption in a letter dated June 6, 2022, according to The Nation.
The AGF had constituted the PACPM to collate applications in respected cases of people in custody or who have served jail terms, which are deserving of presidential pardon and prerogative of mercy, and advise President Muhammadu Buhari accordingly.
The PACPM concluded its assignment and submitted a report which was presented to President Buhari and the Council of State on April 14, 2022.
The report was later found to have been altered to include the name of the jailed former Managing Director of a bank, who was not among the names recommended for pardon.
According to the EFCC’s report, dated July 2027, a copy of which The Nation sighted in Abuja on Wednesday, an investigation revealed that a member of PACPM secretariat and an Assistant Chief State Counsel in the Federal Ministry of Justice got money from an agent of the jailed banker to insert his name on the list.
“Efforts are in top gear to arrest the other co-conspirators and upon the conclusion of the investigation, the case file will subsequently be forwarded to our legal and prosecution department for vetting and prosecution,” the EFCC report stated.