President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has granted clemency to Major Suleiman Alabi Akubo, a Nigerian Army officer who was sentenced to life imprisonment for selling more than 7,000 stolen military weapons to Niger Delta militants.
Akubo, aged 62, was among 175 beneficiaries of the recent presidential pardon and other forms of clemency approved by the National Council of State.
In a statement, the president’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said Tinubu reduced Akubo’s sentence from life imprisonment to 20 years, citing the officer’s “good conduct and remorse.”
The embattled officer 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 arms — including assault rifles, submachine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades — were reportedly sold to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
The stolen weapons were valued at about ₦100 million at the time. The presiding judge, Bala Usara, had revealed that the buyers included Sunny Okah, brother of MEND leader Henry Okah.
MEND had in 2016 claimed that the federal government agreed to review Akubo’s and others’ life sentences under the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
