The family of the late Bilyaminu Bello has condemned the presidential pardon granted to his wife, Maryam Sanda, describing the move as the worst possible injustice any family could be made to go through.
Sanda stabbed Bilyaminu to death at their Abuja home on November 19, 2017.
She was convicted and sentenced to d3ath by the FCT High Court on January 27, 2020.
President Bola Tinubu approved the release of 175 inmates, including Sanda, serving various jail terms across the country under the Prerogative of Mercy policy, which allows the President to grant clemency on humanitarian grounds.
In a strongly worded statement issued on Monday, October 13, Dr Bello Mohammed, on behalf of the family, said the move has reopened their healing wounds.
"To have Maryam Sanda walk the face of the earth again, free from any blemish for her heinous crime as if she had merely squashed an ant, is the worst possible injustice any family could be made to go through for a loved one,” the statement partly read
The family noted that Sanda, who was convicted for the premeditated and cold-blooded m8rder of her husband, had shown “no remorse even for a fleeting moment throughout the saga."
They recalled that the court’s judgment was upheld by the Court of Appeal on December 4, 2020, and later affirmed by the Supreme Court on October 27, 2023, saying the family had found some closure after justice was served.
"Satisfied that justice had finally been served, the judgment provided some closure of sorts in the circumstance, if ever there could be one.
"Although the perpetrator had shown no remorse, even for a fleeting moment throughout the saga, the grieving family took solace in the judgments and moved on, having painfully come to terms with the fate that life had thrust upon one of our own.
"This latest turn of events, coming just a few years after the dastardly crime that cruelly cut short Bilyaminu’s life, has however, expectedly reopened our healing wounds.”
The family expressed deep disappointment that, despite the gravity of the crime and the painstaking judicial process, the Federal Government chose to extend clemency to Sanda.