Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has pardoned a recently trending convict, whose crime was stealing a fowl, Segun Olowookere, alongside his co-convict, Sunday Morakinyo.
Olowookere, who was 17 years old at the time of his arrest in November 2010, was convicted and sentenced to death by an Osun State High Court on December 17, 2014, for conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and stealing.
His case gained public attention recently after his mother appeared on a podcast, pleading for intervention in her son’s plight.
The story went viral on social media, prompting Adeleke to direct the state’s attorney general to begin the process for his pardon.
In a statement released on Thursday by the governor’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, the governor announced the pardon of Olowookere, Morakinyo, and 51 other inmates.
The statement partly read, “In line with the recommendations of the State Advisory Council on Prerogative of Mercy, Governor Ademola Adeleke has exercised the prerogative of mercy towards 53 convicts serving various convictions within the Nigerian Correctional Service.
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“Now know ye therefore that, I, Senator Ademola Jackson Adeleke, the Governor of Osun State of Nigeria, in exercise of the power conferred on me by paragraph (a), (c) and (d) of subsection (i) of Section 212 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended), I am pleased to extend my grace and mercy unto the said inmates.
“Convict recommended for outright pardon for good conduct (capital offences) are: Sunday Morakinyo, Segun Olowookere, Tunde Olapade and Demola Odeyemi.”
PUNCH Online reports last Wednesday that Adeleke directed the state’s attorney general and commissioner for justice to begin a full investigation into the case and initiate processes to grant the man a prerogative of mercy.
