The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has said that he would consider pardon for corruption suspects in order to help recover billions of dollars stashed abroad by the country’s politicians and government officials.
Abubakar unfolded the amnesty programme at a town hall meeting tagged: ‘’The Candidates”, organised by the MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with NTA and DARIA media on Wednesday in Abuja.
Nigerian treasury had been the target of rapacious public officials who looted it with reckless abandon, such that the Buhari administration has made fighting corruption one of its main pillars.
Buhari launched a whistleblower scheme that netted billions of Naira and millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts or as government found out, in private homes.
In Abubakar’s view, his amnesty programme would encourage looters to voluntarily return some of the stolen funds badly needed to fund infrastructure investment and recommended sanctions for election rigging.
Atiku also said that his government would be willing to investigate the military top commanders as a way of tackling the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, if elected.
He said that his government would not hesitate to deal with any senior officer who failed in his duty after being adequately funded by his government.
“We cannot continue to accept that kind of situation whereby commanders lose lives, lose equipment to terrorists and then nothing happens to them,’’ he said.
The PDP presidential candidate also said that he would be willing to investigate the report of Amnesty International indicting the military on allegations of genocide.
He stressed the need for government to invest more in education and health sectors as well as to bring in more private investors to compliment governments programmes in the health sector.
NAN
