The embattled former
chairman of the Presidential Pension Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, on Tuesday
said his reinstatement started with a meeting with the Minister of Justice and
Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, as ordered by President
Muhammadu Buhari.
In a video aired by Channels
TV on Monday, Mr. Maina, wanted for alleged corruption, explained how the
current administration held meetings with him and returned him to the civil
service.
His secret reinstatement,
exposed in October by PREMIUM TIMES, outraged Nigerians and raised questions
about the Buhari administration’s seriousness about tackling corruption.
The president responded to
the report with alarm, and ordered an immediate investigation as senior
government officials directly involved in Mr. Maina’s recall traded blames and
denied responsibility.
Despite receiving the report
of the investigation, the president has not sanctioned anyone for the scandal
till date.
Instead, Mr. Buhari swiftly
fired the Secretary to Government, Babachir Lawal, and head of the National
Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke, indicted in separate corruption cases. Critics
said those sackings were diversionary.
In his first known public
comments, Mr. Maina appeared to imply the president merely feigned ignorance to
pacify a roiled public as he was not only in the know about his reinstatement,
but he ordered it.
Mr. Maina said he initially
decided not to return to work despite a court order reinstating him because
some people in the past administration did not want him back.
“The letter of dismissal, I
didn’t even receive a letter. It was when I heard about it (that) my lawyers
went to court. They took the Senate to court and the court quashed whatever was
the report of the Senate. The court also removed all the warrant of arrest. The
court upheld that I should return to work. That was in April 2013. But the last
administration refused to take me back to my job. They refused to obey the
court order. The Head of Service was asked not to return me to the office. The
Federal Civil Service Commission chairperson at that time did not want me to
return to office.
“Now I did not return to
office but when this government came in, the president gave his note that go
and sit down with Maina, I’ve given you the approval. They sat down with me
after the security agencies cleared me of any wrong doing.”
Mr. Maina said he has never
been sued in any court of law for any allegation.
“Nobody has ever taken me to
court in Nigeria. I want Nigerians to know. I have never been taken to any
court of law. Nobody has ever sued me for anything. I’ve never been take to any
court of law.
“I have sued all the
security agencies that we are talking about and I have won. I have full court
judgements. They place my name on INTERPOL, I went to court and removed it.
They did this, I did this I removed it. There is nothing they have not done. Even
the one they could not do, they went to immigration, put my name on no fly
list. I went to the airport. I was in Nigeria, that was in 2015. I went to the
court, the court granted me N2 million damages for not flying that day.”
He relayed how he helped the
government recover N1.3 trillion through the AGF.
He added that the process of
his reinstatement started after the Attorney General, Mr. Malami, visited him.
“As soon as this present
government decided to sit with me, and after sitting with, me, I told them I
will not leave you to go back to Nigeria without something in your pocket. I’m
going to give you something in your pocket and the Minister laughed. The
Minister of Justice said what are you going to give us as gift? I gave him a
document, I say go here, here, here, there’s N1.3 trillion they are going to
steal it because they’ve been stealing every year. He was shocked, he said not
possible. I said sir, with all due respect, could you please try it, this is a
gift I’m giving you. I haven’t gotten to Nigeria, I’m just giving you a gift. I
say try it for you to understand where I’m coming from.
“I’m not a saint but I try
as much as I can to help the system. The minister thought that won’t be
possible, when he got back, he realised I gave him a correct information. Now,
after giving him this information, he asked me, when are you coming back, I
said I will soon be back. I said I have a court order. So, I asked my lawyer to
write a petition. He now wrote a petition to government and the Minister set up
a committee to look at the petition. They looked at the petition and
recommended that this is a court order that there’s no question of going back
on it, nobody has appealed it since 2013 so government must obey it.
“So, he sent a letter to the
Federal Civil Service Commission to say this is the petition I got in my
office, I’m attaching the court order which you must respect. I’m hearing
people are saying he’s directing people to reinstate me. No, he said you must
respect the court order, this is the court order because he is the chief
officer of the country. Now, the document was taken to the Federal Civil
Service Commission. I went to the Federal Civil Service Commission, they told
me they have just received the documents, they are going to see me later and we
have a meeting. After that meeting, they wrote office of the head of service.
They say we want you to sit down with your Senior Staff Committee and after
that you send it to the Ministry of Interior; that was used at that time
because they were coerced which I later found out. The Senior Staff Committee
was coerced by the then Head of Service, Mr. Isa Bello Sanni to make sure they
send me out and packing because I had stopped the inflow of 5.2 billion monthly
to the office of the Head of Service.”
The Special Adviser on Media
and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adesina, refused to comment
on the allegation.
Reached Tuesday night by
phone, he told PREMIUM TIMES, “Anything on that issue, get in touch with the
AGF”.
The Attorney General did not
respond to phone calls. His spokesperson, Salihu Isah, could not also be
reached as his telephone line was switched off.
Source: Premium Times
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