Certainly, this is not the best of times for Abdulrasheed Maina, the embattled former Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), who has since been declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
But Maina, who is not one to let go without a fight, has, as he had earlier promised to open up, said that he is being hunted for stopping N5.32 billion, which he alleged, was being stolen monthly in the Office of the Head of Service and Police Pension office.
According to Maina, his media trial and the framed allegations were part of efforts by persons he described as “pension thieves” to stop him from exposing them.
Maina, in a statement issued by his media aide, Olajide Fashikun, in Kaduna on Tuesday, revealed that this was why he urged President Muhammadu Buhari to thoroughly investigate pending pension petitions, especially as Senator Kabiru Gaya said in an interview, that the N195 billion which he (Maina) was accused of stealing, is in the TSA account.
Maina, whose whereabouts remains unknown, said the presidential investigation is imperative to expose the real pension thieves, some of whom, he alleged, are highly placed public office holders, adding that such will bring succour to starving pensioners.
“The Task Team saved the country about N282 billion from June 2010 when it was constituted”, he said.
The embattled former PRTT chairman revealed that “the presidential investigation will also expose the sum of £6 million (about N3.3 billion) stashed in accounts in London and the top government functionaries in different offices who are drawing the interest on the accounts.
“Between the Head of Service and the Police Pension office, the two places PRTT worked, a leakage of N5.32 billion was stopped per month. 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”, he disclosed.
According to Fashikun, “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 the PRTT boss black. As soon as Maina was driven to exile before the coming of PTAD, N35 billion was stolen in the Head of Service office. The ICPC did not come out with the report. How come nobody is talking about these monies? Maina’s aide asked.
“After the biometric exercise, there were 71,000 genuine workers in the police pension office who needed N826 million to pay them unlike N5.3 billion appropriated for them annually. They were pocketing N4.2 billion yearly. They devised several ingenious ways to pull this cash out, they pulled out an average of N300 million 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” from the dead and paid pension. Accounts were created with fictitious names. The agents who do the multiple collections of these monies from banks get 5% of the volume collected. One of the folks caught then by name Haruna Maigida was paid via three accounts in June 2011 the sums of N7,783,891.68, N17,452,910.87 and N17,293,888.44. He confessed when the EFCC officials arrested him that he got 5% for pulling the cash.
“In the petitions, one of Teidi’s aide made to the EFCC and ICPC, Mr. Teidi had said he paid the money to Senator Aloysius Etuk in foreign currency and that the bribe was meant to prevent their prosecution. He told investigators that he equally bribed Farida Waziri, former Chairman of the EFCC. Why has the two anti-graft agencies not investigated this matter? Why are they after the man who caught the ‘thieves’ and not the ‘thieves’?
“There has been a lot of deliberate cover up in a well written script to give Maina a bad name. Some of those who worked in the PRTT committee do ‘kabu kabu’ to augment their survival. They were severely starved of funds; Maina’s PRTT was a clog in the wheel of so many who were looting the pensioner’s funds”, Fashikun further revealed.
He added: “Maina’s PRTT was brought in to sanitise a very corrupt pension system. It was the success of his pension system in the Ministry of Interior that brought him to the PRTT. 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 N195 billion. Meanwhile, on 13th April 2016, former Kano governor, Senator Kabiru Gaya, told The Sun Newspaper in an interview that the money was never missing. So, why is he being tried for the money that is now confirmed not missing? According to the structure of the task force, Maina like none of them therein never had access to the pension fund and could never have taken one naira lest over N2 billion”, the aide stressed.
Speaking further, Fashikun said, “Former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, during a Senate meeting said that Maina had no contact with funds and revealed how she froze the account where the monies recovered by Maina’s committee was kept and how she transferred the funds to the CBN. So, why will the EFCC continue to hound a man for an offence, which they know he is innocent of? Maina was only the head of the team, which comprised EFCC, ICPC, DSS, NIA, Office of Accountant General, Office of Auditor General, Public Complaints Commission etc. He was the only civilian in the Task Team.
“Maina was just a victim of 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.
“Despite the several facts presented before the Senate committee during the hearing, the committee chose to ignore the facts, instead, they threatened the then President Goodluck Jonathan, following which Maina was shot with five bullets wounds on the side glass of the bullet proof car Jonathan gave him”, Fashikun said.
According to the spokesperson of the embattled Maina, his boss said, “he had verifiable” evidence the federal pension scheme was returning to “the looting era” which his team set out to end, noting that an alleged 98% of pensioners have been denied their benefits since November, 2012”.
Interior Ministry Ignored HoS Warning On Maina, Leaked Memos Show
Meanwhile, facts have emerged that the Head of Service (HoS), Winifred Oyo-Ita, drew the attention of officials of the Ministry of Interior to the status of Abdulrasheed Maina as a sacked government official, while the Interior Ministry chose to ignore her opinion, but went ahead to make him a director in the ministry.
According to two correspondences between the Office of the Head of Service (HoS) and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Abubakar Magaji, which this newspaper obtained, the HoS wrote to the Interior Ministry to correct the anomaly of the letter of resumption allegedly issued to Maina from her office, saying it was not so.
She, in the letter, brought to the attention of the Interior Ministry leadership that the letter of reinstatement allegedly issued by her office, posting Maina to the Interior Ministry as a director never emanated from her office.
She also tacitly in the letter drew attention of the Interior Ministry to the fact that Maina has been dismissed from the service as well.
But the Interior Ministry chose to ignore her warning, only to acknowledge that what they ascribed to her wasn’t right, but all the same, informed her that Maina now works in the ministry as a director.
At the peak of the controversy generated by the revelation that Maina who was on the wanted list of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had resumed duty at the Interior Ministry as a director, a supposed letter of acknowledgement of posting of Maina by the HoS to the Interior Ministry was made public to justify the claim.
However, INDEPENDENT can authoritatively report that the HoS in her letter to the Interior Ministry denounced the allegations that her office posted Maina to the ministry for any purpose.
Her letter of complaint dated October 23, 2017, with Ref No HCSF/LU/COR/FCSC/749/T addressed to the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Interior, clearly stated that the letter of reinstatement posting Maina to the Interior Ministry, being referred to, never emanated from her office.
The letter titled ‘Re: Reinstatement into Service: Alhaji Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina – Deputy Director (Administration) SGL 16’ reads, “I write to refer to your letter Ref No MI/1436/II/24 dated 16th October 2017 on the above subject and to inform that the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation never posted Alhaji Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina to the Ministry of Interior, since after his dismissal.
“The letter you claimed you are acknowledging never emanated from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
“Nevertheless, you are requested to forward a copy of purported letter of reinstatement and posting said to have emanated from OHCSF with Ref No 4029.82/Vol III/79 of 18th September 2017, upon which action was taken by your office to absorb Maina and document him to reach the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation today, Monday 23rd October, 2017.
“Please accept my warm regards”.
The letter was personally signed by Winifred Oyo-Ita.
The letter was acknowledged received at the Permanent Secretary office at 5.55p.m same day.
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However, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, in his response admitted that the HoS was right in her objection, as he acknowledged that the ministry made an error in ascribing the letter authorising Maina’s reinstatement to her office, rather than the Federal Civil Service Commission.
The letter date October 24, 2017 with Ref No MI/1436/II/26 reads, “I write to refer to your letter Ref No HCSF/LU/COR/FCSC/749/T of 23rd October, 2017 on the above subject and to acknowledge that our letter Ref No MI/1436/II/24 of 16th October, 2017 inadvertently referred to letter Ref No 4029.82/Vol III/179 of 18th September, 2017 as your letter.
“The letter Ref No. FC 4029.82/Vol III/179 of 18th September, 2017 was received in my office from the Federal Civil Service Commission conveying the reinstatement of Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina, Deputy Director SGL 16 (copy attached).
“The purpose of my earlier letter Ref No MI/1436/II/24 of 16th October, 2017, however, remains to inform you that Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina reported for duty at the Ministry of Interior.
“While regretting any inconvenience the error might have caused, please accept the assurances of my highest respect.”
The letter was signed by Abubakar. G. Magaji, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, and was signed received at the office of the HoS on October 25, 2017 contrary to her instruction that the response from the permanent secretary must reach her on October 23.
The post N5.32bn Stolen In HoS, Police Pension Offices Monthly, Maina Reveals appeared first on Independent Nigeria.
Source: Daily Independent
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