Nigeria’s Supreme Court has delivered a pivotal judgment overturning President Bola Tinubu’s compassionate pardon for Maryam Sanda, the Abuja housewife convicted of killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, during a heated domestic dispute in 2017. In a split decision of four to one on Friday, December 12, 2025, the apex court affirmed the death sentence originally imposed by the Federal Capital Territory High Court in 2020 and upheld by the Court of Appeal.
This ruling underscores judicial independence, declaring the executive’s pardon invalid while Sanda’s appeal remained pending.
Maryam Sanda, now 37, stabbed her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, to death in their Abuja apartment following suspicions of infidelity, leading to her conviction on charges of culpable homicide punishable by death. The FCT High Court sentenced her to death by hanging in January 2020, a verdict the Court of Appeal affirmed, prompting her final appeal to the Supreme Court. President Tinubu had intervened in October 2025, commuting the sentence to 12 years imprisonment on grounds of her good conduct in detention, remorse, and the welfare of her children, as stated by Presidential Adviser Bayo Onanuga.
The pardon decision ignited national controversy, with Bello’s family decrying it as the “worst possible injustice” that reopened their wounds, while critics argued it eroded public confidence in the justice system and risked setting a dangerous precedent for serious crimes like homicide. Initially part of a broader clemency list of 175 names reviewed by the Council of State, Sanda’s inclusion survived adjustments that removed offenders linked to kidnapping, drugs, and arms dealing, but public backlash persistent.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Moore Adumein, who read his decision personally, held that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, validating the lower courts’ findings. He emphasized, “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,” ruling the intervention premature under Section 175 of the 1999 Constitution, which governs presidential prerogatives of mercy.
The Supreme Court dismissed Sanda’s appeal entirely for lacking merit, resolving all issues in favor of upholding the original death penalty after she had already spent about six years in custody. This decision reinstates her facing execution, nullifying the reduced term that would have required roughly six more years.
The ruling highlights tensions between executive clemency and ongoing judicial processes, signaling that pardons cannot override active appeals in grave matters like culpable homicide. Human rights groups and legal observers continue to monitor the case, amid debates on death penalty enforcement in Nigeria, where executions remain rare despite numerous sentences. Sanda’s fate now hinges on potential prerogative of mercy post-judgment or gubernatorial options, though federal offenses limit such avenues.
