November 1, 2017
Agency Report
Former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reform Team (PTPT), Abdulrasheed Maina, has broken silence on the allegations of fraud levelled against him.
Maina who was indicted over diversion of public funds worth billions of naira and declared as a fugitive by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission four years ago as he fled trial for his corruption case. Till now, the Nigerian anti-graft agency still lists him as being wanted.
“Dark complexioned Maina is allegedly complicit in the over N 2 billion Pensions Biometric Scam in the office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation. He remains at large after charges were filed against his accomplices,” the EFCC had stated on its website.
Surprisingly, Maina was reinstated back into service despite having a hanging case of corruption on his neck. The embattled former chairman of the now defunct Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms was out of the blues and secretly given an appointment as the head of a directorate in the Interior Ministry which is led by Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau.
On Sunday, October 22, Dambazau said in a statement signed by his press secretary, Ehisienmen Osaigbovo, that the embattled former Pension Reforms Presidential Task Force boss was appointed into the ministry by the Head of Service, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita.
Monday, October 23, Oyo-Ita countered the Interior Minister, saying there was no iota of truth in the statement released by Abdulrahman Dambazau as she was not involved in any capacity in the recall that brought Maina back into the civil service with his appointment into the Ministry of Interior.
In a statement released by her Assistant Director, Media Relations, Mohammed Manga, the HoS stated clearly and categorically that Maina’s reinstatement and posting did not come from her office as she exonerated herself from any involvement in the issue.
Apparently displeased by the corruption case hanging on Maina, President Buhari ordered his immediate disengagement on Monday, October 23.
President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina said Maina was relieved of his duty because he left the service without permission and he ran away from the country.
Reacting to the allegations, Maina, whose whereabouts have been unknown since his dismissal from the civil service, said he “is just a victim of corruption fighting back”.
Maina who spoke through Olajide Fashikun, his media aide in Kaduna on Tuesday, October 31, said the investigation ordered by President Buhari will expose those involved in pension fraud.
The ex-Pension boss said: “After the biometric exercise, there were 71,000 genuine workers in the police pension office who needed N826million to pay them unlike N5.3billion appropriated for them annually,” he said.
“They were pocketing N4.2billion yearly. They devised several ingenious ways to pull these cash out. They pulled out an average of N300million daily Monday to Friday. There are bank alerts to substantiate these assertions.
“There is a particular person who has 69 cloned versions of his name on the payroll. Bank officials were in cohort. Names of dead pensioners were ‘exhumed’ and people were paid. Accounts were created with fictitious names.
“Between the office of the head of service and the police pension office, a leakage of N5.32 billion per month was stopped. This is what civil servants steal monthly in the two offices out of the 99 pension offices in the country.
Forty-three persons were arrested and handed over to the EFCC to prosecute while 222 houses were seized from them.”
Fashikun said after his principal was “driven into exile”, N35billion was stolen in the office of the head of the service.
“In the current media trial where all manners of stories have been published, there has been a lot of distortion of facts and sometimes outright blackmail, all in an attempt to paint Maina black like Lucifer,” he said.
“After the biometric exercise, there were 71,000 genuine workers in the police pension office who needed N826million to pay them unlike N5.3billion appropriated for them annually. They were pocketing N4.2billion yearly.
“They devised several ingenious ways to pull these cash out. They pulled out an average of N300million daily Monday to Friday. There are bank alerts to substantiate these assertions.
“There has been a lot of deliberate cover-up in a well-written script to give Maina a bad name. Emerging evidence has shown that Maina is just a victim of corruption fighting back. The then Senate committee, in a bid to crucify Maina, did the hatchet job when they told Nigerians that he stole N195billion.
“Maina was just a victim of a high power play of some powerful individuals in high places. So, for three years, Maina suffered ‘media trial’, where he was found guilty several times on the pages of newspapers”, he added.