Legal practitioner and public affairs analyst, Frank Tietie, has stated that once a presidential pardon is granted, it cannot be reversed.

Tietie made this assertion during an interview on Arise Television on Wednesday while reacting to President Bola Tinubu’s recent reversal of pardons earlier granted to some convicts.

He explained that a presidential pardon is a final constitutional act that immediately restores the beneficiary’s freedom, adding that the president lacks the judicial authority to revoke it.

“At the time the president signed the first list, it was a complete act — one he has no power to reverse,” Tietie said. “The president cannot exercise judicial powers by saying someone is no longer fit for pardon; it is not within his constitutional authority.”

His comments followed reports that President Tinubu had reduced the death sentence of Maryam Sanda — convicted in 2020 for the murder of her husband — to 12 years imprisonment, while also removing her name from an earlier pardon list.

Tietie further argued that if the president could reverse such constitutional actions, he could as well reverse other major policy decisions, such as fuel subsidy removal and tariff increases, which, he said, “would be unconstitutional.”