MUST READ: Stolen funds: No plea bargain — FG

ABUJA — The Federal Government declared, yesterday, that it was more interested in recovering to the last kobo, all public funds stolen and stashed away by top politicians and their cronies under the guise of arms purchase.
It said it was not keen on frivolous plea bargain option being contemplated by some of the suspects now standing trial.

The government said such plea bargain allows looters to go away with stolen public assets.

Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, (SAN) disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Vanguard last night.

According to Malami, the era of allowing smart persons to loot public funds and pay back a pittance under the guise of plea bargain is over.

The minister made it clear that all those who are implicated by the arms probe and other scams that have cost the nation hundreds of billions of Naira, would be made to cough out the money and still pay the price for breaching public trust.

The reaction of the government came on the heels of the reported willingness of some top politicians to refund over N650 million which they claimed to have collected from the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, for campaign purposes.

According to a media report on yesterday, the top politicians, who had acknowledged collecting the money for the mobilization of their supporters in the six geo-political zones of the country, were making moves to quietly return the money to the government.
Source: Vanguard