A former Nigerian military officer convicted of sodomy by a General Court Martial — a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court — never served his five-year prison sentence, received a presidential pardon, had his military record quietly cleaned up, and is now Dean of the Faculty of Law at the American University of Nigeria.
Here’s a story that reads like it was designed to test your faith in institutions.
Bello Magaji, currently Dean of the Faculty of Law at the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola, was convicted of sodomy in 1997 by a General Court Martial. His victims? Four young men — including a 17-year-old — whom he allegedly lured with false promises of employment, then plied with alcohol before sexually abusing them.
The court handed him seven years. That was later trimmed to five. He appealed, lost at every turn, and in March 2008, Nigeria’s Supreme Court — five justices, unanimous—told him exactly where he stood. One judge was so outraged he said the sentence was too lenient and recommended solitary confinement under psychiatric care.
So he went to prison, right?
Wrong.
According to a Premium Times investigation, Magaji never spent a single day behind bars serving that sentence. Instead, he kept appealing, kept challenging, and bought himself enough time that when former President Goodluck Jonathan issued a presidential pardon in 2013 — in a batch that also included a corruption-convicted governor — Magaji walked free without ever truly being caught.
It didn’t stop there. By 2015, the Nigerian Army had scrubbed his record clean. “Cashiering” — the military’s term for a disgraceful dismissal — became “voluntary retirement.” He got his rank back, his pension, his certificate of service, and a letter praising his “unblemished years of military service.”
Unblemished.
Magaji then earned an LLM and a PhD, taught law in Nigeria and Uganda, served as a law dean in Uganda, and quietly returned to Nigeria where AUN appointed him Dean of its Faculty of Law. His university profile mentions none of his military history.
AUN says it knew nothing about the conviction and is “looking into it.”
A law professor who specializes in impunity, teaching the next generation of Nigerian lawyers. You truly cannot make this up.
NEWS NOW:
