A legal practitioner, Dr Kayode Ajulo has described Mr Femi Fani-Kayode’s admission into the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a ‘symbolic presidential amnesty’, considering his past attacks on President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ajulo said this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja, against the backdrop of Fani-Kayode’s recent defection to the APC.
He said the APC was magnanimous to have received him, irrespective of the fact that some persons including some party members might not be happy with the development.
“FFK’s past attacks on President Buhari and the APC had unwittingly influenced passions in some quarters, for armed and unarmed agitations against the President and the Nigerian state.”
He recalled that FFK had suggested on different occasions with his tweets, that the APC government was filled with terrorists.
Ajulo, however, said that the commendable magnanimity of President Buhari to FFK should be extended to various agitators across the country as a basis for amnesty.
According to him, amnesty in this context is not to be viewed from the strict standpoint of legal knowledge, rather the ordinary meaning is desirable.
“For our immediate purpose therefore, amnesty means forgiveness, cessation of remembrance of wrong, leniency and mercy,” he said.
He stated that it might not be wrong to state that the symbolic ‘amnesty’ granted to FFK by the President and the APC almost came on a platter of gold.
“The symbolism by the President signposts the fact that the vilest of ‘sinners’ in his lucid moment of thorough reflections, can be granted safe passage toward the “mercy seat,” he said.
Ajulo admitted that FFK is a misunderstood man and a controversial personality.
According to him, having been given the benefit of ‘eating his cake and having it’, the same level of understanding, leniency and mercy should be extended to his allies.
He said some of the agitations by secessionists had not gone without the open endorsement and support of FFK, and advised FFK to totally divest himself of his divisive un-nationalistic past.
