President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has granted clemency to Major Suleiman Alabi Akubo, a Nigerian Army officer who was sentenced to life imprisonment for selling over 7,000 stolen military weapons to Niger Delta militants.
Akubo, now 62, was among 175 people who recently received a presidential pardon and other forms of clemency approved by the National Council of State.
According to Bayo Onanuga, the president’s special adviser on information and strategy, Tinubu reduced Akubo’s sentence from life imprisonment to 20 years, citing the officer’s “good conduct and remorse.”
Akubo was convicted in 2008 by a military court in Kaduna alongside five other soldiers for selling weapons from the army’s depots at the Command and Staff College, Jaji, and the One Base Ordnance, Kaduna. The weapons — including assault rifles, submachine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades — were sold to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
The stolen arms were valued at about ₦100m at the time. The trial judge, Bala Usara, noted that the buyers included Sunny Okah, brother of MEND leader Henry Okah.
In 2016, MEND claimed that the federal government had agreed to review Akubo’s and others’ life sentences under the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
