No plea bargain for looters - FG

As a part of the renewed war against graft, the Federal Government has foreclosed the option of entering into plea bargains with those facing corruption charges.
This is to stem the abuses which had become rampant over the years with the practice of plea bargaining.
The Federal Government has also vowed to reopen various stalled cases of investigations or prosecutions of former public office holders that were botched by past administrations in the country.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), made these disclosures in Abuja on Tues-day when the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners visited him in his office.
He said that the Federal Government had put in place a formidable team of public prosecutors to take on the government’s anti-corruption war at the various courts in the country.
The BringBackOurGirls group, which has been on the forefront of the campaign for the government to secure the release of the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped by the Boko Haram sect in 2014 in Borno State, was at the minister’s office to engage him on the need for the Muhammadu Buhari administration to find the students.
According to Malami, President Buhari is committed to bringing to book all the perpetrators of corrupt practices in the country.
Responding to the issue of plea bargaining raised by the convener of the group, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, Mala¬mi expressed the government’s abhorrence for the policy and declared that Buhari will not compromise on the fight against terrorism and financial crimes.
Malami said: “I cannot imagine someone being responsible for mon-umental deaths of our citizens and then being set free on the basis of plea-bargain as a policy. It has never been the policy of the government to make compromises on terrorism and finan¬cial crimes. It will never be tolerated by the office of the AGF.”
He described the abduction of the Chibok girls as “tormenting and psychologically traumatising for the country.
“It is tragic for a country to have a budget meant for arms procurement for the protection of life and property of the citizens, and end up not having the arms but compromising the pro¬cess of making adequate provisions for the protection of the citizens.
“The government of President Muhammadu Buhari has demon¬strated sufficient skill and commit¬ment to the protection of life and property within the shortest practi¬cable time of coming into existence; it has recorded tremendous success including confronting insurgents in Sambisa Forest head-on with the hope of rescuing the Chibok girls.
“We have put in place a nation¬al prosecution team that comprises all
still moving at snail speed. He said the military had relaxed its excesses following the public outcry against their action.
The Army could not be reach for comments on the development. Several efforts to reach the com¬mander were futile while the offic¬er facilitating army/media relation¬ship in the state did not help matters.
The AUTHORITY had report¬ed on Tuesday that travellers were stranded for days on the Niger Bridge Head because of its block¬ade by the military.
stakeholders for the purposes of en¬suring the success of what charges are presented before the courts.
“The committee will be saddled with the responsibility of preferring relevant charges and ensuring that they are preferred in line with the dic¬tates of the law without compromis¬es,” the minister said.
The country’s chief law officer added that corruption cases under past administrations in the country were deliberately compromised dur¬ing investigations in order to pave way for criminal elements to escape the long arm of the law.
Malami said that steps had been taken to audit such cases with a view to bringing the suspects to justice.
“It is not just about having a team that will be prosecuting but ensur¬ing that relevant audit is taken as it re¬lates to previous prosecution to ensure that those that are found wanting are brought to book, and then the future of prosecution in this country is fur¬ther enhanced by having in place an effective legal team that will involve legal drafters for efficient drafting of charges, efficient investigators that will ensure that adequate proof of evidence that will established the re¬quired ingredients of an offence are put in place”.
The minister assured the group of the government’s commitment to se¬cure the freedom of the Chibok girls.
Earlier, Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education, had told the AGF that the inefficient governance of the immediate past government was largely responsible for the tragedy of the Chibok girls.
She recalled that since the advocacy for the Chibok girls’ release began in April 2014, no concrete step was taken by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to secure the safe return of the girls.
“In the movement, we over time realised that it is the failure of gov-ernance that resulted in the abduction of the Chibok girls and that cor-ruption was the key obstacle to their rescue.
To that effect, therefore, we believe that in recent times and the rev-elations that have followed, it is clear that there is a lot your office must do in order to establish a framework that assures Nigerians that every bad behaviour that took place and facilitated the abduction of the girls and every bad behaviour that impeded their immediate release must be fully prosecuted.
“The matter of disclosure of the Presidential Taskforce report on the fact-finding mission into the veracity of the abduction is key and urgent.
“This will put paid to the say¬ing by some people that the Chibok girls’ abduction is a scam. How can the tragedy of the Chibok girls be a scam when the government under which it happened instituted an in-quiry into it, and there are parents who are crying that their children are not yet back? Their children are still with terrorists and their fellow citizens dare to call their experience a scam,” Ezekwesili said.