A US House Representative, Riley Moore, has urged the Federal Government to grant a pardon to Sunday Jackson, the farmer sentenced to death for killing an assailant while allegedly defending himself.
Speaking on Thursday at a US congressional hearing on President Donald Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), Moore said Jackson’s conviction amounted to an injustice.
Moore stated, “I urge the Nigerian government to consider pardoning Sunday Jackson, a man who was defending himself. A Fulani militant died during that struggle, yet Jackson is now facing a death sentence. How is that justice?”
The US lawmaker also expressed alarm over what he described as the unchecked activities of armed groups in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
He said, “Fulani militants operating in the Middle Belt appear to be fully armed. Why hasn’t there been a serious effort by the Nigerian government to disarm them?
“These groups have access to AK-47s and other weapons used to slaughter Christians. Is this something you’ve raised with Nigerian authorities? Because addressing this would make a significant difference.”
Jackson was convicted of murdering a herdsman, Buba Bawuro, following a clash on his farmland in Adamawa in 2015. He insisted throughout the trial that he acted in self-defence after being attacked.
He was arrested, charged with murder, and in 2021 sentenced to death by a state high court, which ruled that he fatally stabbed the herdsman with a weapon recovered during the altercation after the assailant had been disarmed.
Despite widespread public sympathy and intense debate surrounding the case, the Supreme Court on 7 March 2025 upheld the death sentence.
The court held that Jackson’s actions amounted to retaliation rather than self-defence, dismissing his appeal and affirming the earlier judgments of both the high court and the Court of Appeal.