MNK DESERVES ACQUITTAL, NOT PARDON
MNK is not a violent man.
MNK is not genocidal.
MNK is not a commander of militias.
MNK does not need a pardon.
MNK needs acquittal.
Period.
The Nigerian Constitution is clear in Section 36(5):
“Every person charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, domesticated in Nigeria under Cap A9, reinforces it:
No one shall be deprived of liberty except on grounds and procedures established by law.
And internationally, Article 14 of the ICCPR insists that punishment must match proven personal conduct, not political interpretation.
Philosophy is even clearer:
Mill’s Harm Principle says speech is punishable only when it causes imminent violence.
Hannah Arendt insists that the state must distinguish power from force — otherwise justice collapses into fear.
Dicey’s Rule of Law demands equal treatment, not selective enforcement.
Applying all these, one conclusion stands unshaken:
MNK deserves acquittal, not pardon.
Because pardon implies guilt.
Acquittal restores dignity.
Now to the argument about silence being “strategy”:
Not every battle is fought with noise — that is true.
But silence must never be used as an excuse to abandon justice.
If silence is a path to “presidential pardon,” then you have already accepted the lie that MNK is guilty.
He is NOT.
So why beg for mercy where there should be vindication?
And to the attempt at deflection:
“Is Rt. Hon. Kalu the only Igbo politician in Abuja?”
No — but he is the self-proclaimed face of reconciliation
The architect of peacebuilding
The national voice of Ndigbo
The Deputy Speaker of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
and the one who has consistently positioned himself as the bridge between the South-East and the centre.
When a man publicly wears the garment of a shepherd, he cannot pretend to be an ordinary sheep when the wolves come.
Leadership is not a title.
It is responsibility.
And in moral philosophy, Silence in the face of injustice is complicity (Martin Luther King Jr).
Aristotle calls such silence “cowardice.”
Kant calls it “dereliction of duty.”
Socrates describes it as “the death of civic virtue.”
So let the truth stand without stammer:
MNK deserves acquittal, not pardon.
MNK deserves justice, not negotiation.
MNK deserves constitutional fairness, not political silence.
And anyone occupying a position of influence — whether one man or fifty — owes the people voice, not excuses.
AProf Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke
