By MMN reporter 12.12.2025
President Bola Tinubu’s pardon of Maryam Sanda convicted and on death row for killing her husband has been overturned by the Supreme Court.
Ruling on the matter on Friday, the Supreme Court in a 4-1 decision said Tinubu couldn’t have pardoned Maryam Sanda whose death sentence was still pending in the Appeal Court.
Maryam Sanda was sentenced to death by hanging in 2020 by a High Court sitting in Abuja Federal Capital Territory (FCT), after she was found guilty of murdering her husband, Bilyaminu Bello in cold blood. She filed an appeal, and the sentence was confirmed by the Court of Appeal. Maryam Sanda’s legal team approached the Supreme Court.
But in between President Tinubu pardoned her, but later commuted the death sentence to 12 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Moore Adumein submitted in the lead judgment, which he personally delivered, that the prosecution proved the case beyond reasonable doubt as required, adding that the Court of Appeal was right to have affirmed the judgement of the trial court.
Justice Adumein held that it was wrong for the Executive to seek to exercise its power of pardon over a case of culpable homicide, in respect of which an appeal was pending.