Bank PHB’s Convicted Ex-MD Escapes Presidential Pardon

By Tosin Olatokunbo

Former Managing Director of defunct Bank PHB missed the presidential pardon by hairs breadth recently after President Muhammadu Buhari pardoned some convicts.

On April 15, Buhari set free from prison 162 inmates in line with the approval of Council of state. The body is constitutionally empowered to advise the president on his use of prerogative of mercy for convicts.

It’s made up of the President, Vice President, former presidents, Chief Justice of the Federation, Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Atuche, it has now been revealed was among the prison inmates which included former Governors Joshua Dariye of Plateau state and Jolly Nyame of Taraba state, originally shortlisted for pardon but was later dropped.

According to The Cable, the former bank PHB chief executive who was convicted last year and sentenced to 12 years in prison concurrently for graft was shortlisted but was later dropped on the basis that he is a fresh inmate having been sentenced barely one year ago.

The presidential pardon has now become a subject of investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC which the online newspaper reported has quizzed top officials of the Abubakar Malami-led Ministry of Justice.

The report claimed that some aides of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation are suspected to have been involved in underhand deals while compiling the pardon list.

Among those allegedly questioned, the online medium claimed included Mrs Leticia Ayoola-Daniels, director of the administration of criminal justice and reforms department under the justice ministry.

The ministry officials allegedly received bribes from some certain individuals many of whom have now been pardoned by the president, even though the Presidency has yet to release the names of those pardoned, except those of Dariye and Nyame who jointly stole close to N3 billion belonging to their states.

The presidency hinged the pardon of the two former governors on health grounds as they are both suffering from terminal diseases. Not a few Nigerians have however, condemned the federal government for setting the two former governors free.

For instance, human rights lawyer and activist Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN described the federal government’s action as a double standard, adding that all those serving prison sentences across the country should have been pardoned.

Meanwhile, weeks after the pardon Dariye and Nyame are yet to be released from prison due to bureaucratic bottlenecks, government sources said.

Atuche was, in June 2021, convicted of N25.7 billion fraud and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment to run concurrently for six years.