Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami has denied giving directives for the reinstatement of former Chairman of Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina back into the Federal Civil Service.

Maina was sacked by the Federal Civil Service Commission for absconding from his duty post.

Malami, Thursday at the Aliyu Madaki-led House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigative hearing on the disappearance, reinstatement and promotion of Maina said the letter of reinstatement did not emanate from his office because as at 5th October, 2017, Maina’s reinstatement matter was ‘work in progress’ that has not been completed.

He however said the consideration being given to Maina’s request for reinstatement was borne out of national interest that overrides individual interests

The Minister of Interior, Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazzau also washed his hands off the reinstatement saying the office of the Minister did not write any letter to that effect, since it was an establishment rather than policy matter which he oversees.

Dambazzau said, the Permanent Secretary Abubakar Magaji, who is on sick leave would be in the best position to address the issue.

Similarly, the   Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF), Winifred Eyo-Ita said she did not direct the Ministry of Interior to act on the reinstatement following a letter from the AGF requesting the reinstatement.

She said she withheld the letter that was forwarded to her desk by the FCSC in order to make further clarification because the action was against the anti-corruption stance of the government.

According to her, she formally questioned the proprietary of the Permanent Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Magaji for acting on the AGF letter without directives from the office of the HoCSF.

The acting Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Joseph Oluremi said his Commission acted on the reinstatement based on the letter from the AGF, who made it clear that legal process concerning the issue were carefully examined.

He also said it was not the duty of a Ministry to reinstate any official.

Both Eyo-Ita and Oluremi said being the chief Legal officer of rhe country, they have no basis to question the AGF notwithstanding that they are aware of the statutory responsibilities of their respective offices.

Malami, who disclosed that a multi – sectoral pension fraud syndicate is fleecing the country of N3.7b monthly, in his presentation said he got clearance from relevant security agencies and the National Security Adviser, Gen. Babagana  Monguno before his meeting that was arranged through a third party with Maina in Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE) where he was availed further information on recovery drive and individuals involved.

Malami absolved himself of the reinstatement of Maina saying he delegated the examination of the request by Maina’s lawyers for reinstatement to one of his subordinates.

The AGF said his minutes to correspondences between himself and the line officer in charge of the matter were about the need for the officer to present stronger evidence-based argument for the reinstatement.

Saying that he was embarrassed by media reports that he was compromised about the reinstatement issue, Malami said, “As at 5th October, 2017, the issue of Maina was still work in progress, I did not give any directive that Maina be reinstated.

“The issue of reinstatement of Maina was done with no strings attached, based on court processes and the fact that none of the parties exercised their rights of appeal, I acted in the best interest of Nigeria, not on any individual’s interest”

“The legal opinion of the AGF was anchored on my oath of office and the responsibility of the office”.

He said based on the correspondences between himself and the line officer and his minutes on the correspondences, “The letter of reinstatement of Maina couldn’t have emanated from my office.

“That letter of 21 Feb, when I was confronted with that letter by the Senate, it didn’t ring a bell at all in my memory. What I did was going back to the office to call for the file. And then arising from the file, I could confirm that there was a letter from the Miana’s lawyer.”

“I could confirm that I treated that letter in February and directed the line officer to treat it. I could confirm that the line officer revert back to a memo expressing an opinion with a draft letter, suggesting that I should direct that Maina should be reinstated.

“I could confirm that my mind was agitated over the content and the conclusion of that letter and I could confirm that I minuted on the letter of April that ‘develop further opinion to convince me that the content and conclusion of the judgement in support of the Maina’s lawyer reasonably suggests a conclusion for a consequential effect to the judgment.’”

“I could confirm that there was no further correspondence from the line office up to sometimes in May when the line officer now came up with additional memo and in that memo tried to justify the conclusion that I could direct for the reinstatement of Miana.”

“And I could equally that in that memo; reference was made to court process relating to Indutrial court in which Maina filed an action against the federal government.

“And I could confirm as well that I minuted on that memo directing the officer to make available copies of those court processes that were not made available in support of the memo and I could confirm there was no further correspondence in that regard until sometimes in October precisely on the 5th day of October when the line officer came up with a clean-up copy of the letter seeking my endorsement. In that letter, he was making reference to the previous correspondence.

“And when the correspondence and processes could not ring bell in my memory until I read the letter with the hope to reduce the situation, it was the point at which the whole media issue surrounding the matter now evolved. So, what I am saying in essence, my position is as far as Maina’s request for reinstatement was concerned, it was indeed, a work in progress as at the fifth day of October, 2017”.

He also said pension fraud was beyond Maina, stating that a syndicate that cut across all sectors, including serving and retired public officers, including members of the National Assembly was involved in the cornering N3.7b monthly from pension funds.

He said it was discovered that over 116,000 ghost workers responsible for N829m monthly spread across 29 bank accounts have been uncovered.

He disclosed that his office has commenced investigation on the pension fraud in some key Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA).

“Maina was part of the syndicate until things fell apart between them, the decision I took was not about Maina but in the larger interest of Nigerians,” he added.

On his part, Maina’s counsel, Muhammed Katu said there was no need for the hearing since  the House has already adjudged Maina guilty having asked security agencies to arrest and prosecute him in its resolution.

He however said Maina is willing to attend the hearing and she’d light on the issue but is seeking protection of the House that security agencies would be prevailed upon not to arrest or harass him.

He said Maina was never dismissed because those that carried out the purported dismissal lacked the authority to do it, adding that Maina went on exile because his life was in danger.

He said Maina was still in service and working for the government, and that 23 files were recently referred to him as Acting Director.

While displaying the original copy of the letter, Katu said Maina was reinstated through a letter  signed by Dr. R.K Attahiru of the Department of Human Resources in the Interior Ministry.

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris said Maina is still on its wanted list and the International Police has been placed on red alert.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Valentine Tochukwu, who represented the IGP, said there was no record of any police officer attached to Maina.

He also said Police authority has no details of pension fraud in the service.

In same vein, Independent Corrupt Practice and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) acting Chai an Abdulahi Bako also said the Commission has no role on the disappearance or reinstatement of Maina.

The Committee said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) must appear before it on the next adjourned date of 30th November, 2017.

Source: The Nation

President Muhammadu Buhari's trump card in 2019 presidential election wouldn't be signposted on the war against corruption. That's if he is strong enough to take a shot at the presidency for a second time. It would be something else, unknown to Nigerians. Because the anti-corruption plank upon which he stood to pull the rug off former President Goodluck Jonathan's foot is weakened and has lost its lustre. President Jonathan's corrupt dealings can now be properly said to be mere stealing, while under Mr. Buhar, corruption is the air the nation breathes.

Dead on economic recovery direction, lack of initiatives on power generation, killing and kidnapping of Nigerians by his Fulani herdsmen, inequality of education, and other woes plaguing the nation, President Buhari has shamed himself as an ethnic potentate whose bigotry is beyond comprehension. Buhari's Presidency which stands on antigraft solo soil has been romanticising with the nation's past and present financial criminals from Northern Nigeria who allegedly sponsored his presidential election to the office where he hopes to prosecute his war against graft!

Nations approach tipping point as a result of unremitting corruption which leads to economic turmoil by fostering staggering poverty and broken economic systems on the people and society and kneecaps a nation’s ability to function.
Again, President Buhari's resistance to restructuring specific power structures and government architectures has provided an easier means for corrupt officials to exploit his government. 

The questions on my mind has been since President Buhari has been plagued with delicate health or as a unregenerated military dictator, would that also have eroded his consciousness on key national and international sensitive issues bothering on concrete governance of the country? Did Buhari ever abreast himself with the happenings in Nigeria? Is it deliberate? Is it ethnically motivated? 

From investigation, Abdulrasheed Maina alone allegedly contributed N1.8 billion to President Buhari's presidential campaign in 2019, the same Mr. Buhari who was regaling Nigerians with his inability to procure APC N20 million nomination form. If this is real and to be believed, then Nigeria has gone to the dogs. My earlier emotional investment and that of millions of Nigerians who voted for him in like manner, to take the country out of the woods have been truncated in the worst primitive form. Otherwise, how do you explain behind the scenes reinstatement of a dismissed fugitive looter into the public service, millions of naira paid to him while retirees across the country can't receive their minimum N20,000 (two thousand naira) pension on a monthly basis.

On 13th February 2013, the Senate gave President Goodluck a two-day ultimatum within which to sack the Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, from the Federal Civil Service. Mark spoke tough after a debate on a motion entitled, “Dismissal of Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina for refusal to appear before the Senate” sponsored by Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) and 107 senators, urging Jonathan to sack Maina from the public service.

The Senate then threatened that President Jonathan risked dire consequences if he failed to end Maina’s tenure. Mark declared that the Senate as an institution had been pushed to the wall and could no longer tolerate the insolence of public officials working for the executive. “The executive has to choose between the Senate and Maina. He has crucified himself. If Maina remains, then the Senate would react appropriately. The Senate is not lacking in ideas on what to do. Nobody in this country is bigger than our democracy. I have been extremely patient with Maina so that when we react, they will know that we have been fair,” Mark told his colleagues.

Apparently mindful of the fact that he was sending a message not only to the Villa but also to Nigerians since it was in the full glare of media cameras, Mark threw a challenge to the Police about whether they would be on the side of the law or that of Maina, “This Senate is not going to allow this to linger, if in two days they (Police) have not done anything, we can come here and convene and take a decision. This Senate will bite when it needs to bite, and when we decide to bite, there will be no room for escape. We have been pushed to the wall. The reaction is the correct reaction; no matter the depth of the Maina situation nobody in this country will be left to go free, if he is associated with Maina, no matter who is behind Maina, we are not going to accept it.”

Before then, the Chairman and the Co-Chairman of the Joint Committee, Senators Aloysius Etok and Kabiru Gaya, gave accounts of their experiences with Maina. Gaya said the committee received 7,800 petitions during its assignment and that Maina coordinated the process of mismanaging pension funds.

A literally eviscerated Etok said of Maina, “We called him to account for his stewardship in all the offices he was overseeing. When we exposed some things, he decided not to appear again. Instead of appearing before the committee, he would go on the media, condemning the entire Senate. He said he was not given fair hearing, but when we offered him fair hearing, he refused. He drives two bulletproof cars, in a country where pensioners are hungry. He used N1 billion for jamboree in the name of verification abroad. He spends more than N8 million every two weeks on personal security.”

Maina was one of the supper corrupt individuals for allegedly misappropriating N159 billion of pension funds who sank the graft boat of President Goodluck Jonathan's government in 2015. At the time the Senate was debating him, Maina was being driven around town, including to Aso Rock, in a convoy of several vehicles with a retinue of policemen. It was the one scandal that made many conclude that the Jonathan administration did not ‘give a damn’ about public perception. After his failure to honor numerous invitations by the Senate joint committee, the upper legislative chamber ultimately issued a warrant for Maina’s arrest, prosecution, and sack.

A few days later, the House of Representatives followed suit and endorsed the decision of the Senate for Maina’s arrest and prosecution. The lawmakers said in a motion that the House was “conscious of the need to present a common front with respect to the institutional integrity of the National Assembly” as they were “aware of the need to send a strong signal to the executive arm of the government of the resolve of the national assembly to stop impunity and disregard of due process in the conduct of government business.”

However, President Jonathan eventually caved in and gave the go-ahead for disciplinary action to be taken against Maina, who was dismissed by the Head of Service for absconding from duty and evading arrest. Nothing was heard from Mr. Maina until he was seen in a photograph with President Buhari recently in Aso Rock, which his media aides denied. But Buhari has yet to deny his Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, twisted a 2013 high court judgment to ensure that Mr. Maina was recalled and promoted by the Federal Civil Service Commission, FCSC.

Mr. Malami had in a letter directed the FCSC to give consequential effect to a judgment he said voided the process that led to Maina’s dismissal from service. In line with the directive, the Ministry of Interior, at its Senior Staff Committee meeting held on June 22, placed reliance on the AGF’s letter and recommended that Maina be reinstated into the Service as Deputy Director on Salary Grade Level 16. Contrary to claim by the AGF that Maina was given clean-bill-of-health by a court of competent jurisdiction, a copy of the judgment made available to the public revealed that the court merely quashed a warrant of arrest that was issued against the former pension boss by the Nigerian Senate. The judgment delivered on March 27, 2013, by Justice Adamu Bello (now retired), of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, only faulted the process that led to the issuance of the warrant of arrest against Maina.

The court never cleared Maina of the allegation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, that he embezzled pension fund to the tune of N2billion. The court, in its judgment, equally did not insulate Maina from EFCC’s investigations. Instead, Justice Bello advised Maina to surrender himself to the authorities investigating the alleged N2 billion fraud.

President Buhari's decision to sack Mr. Maina is ridiculous. He did not sack his interior minister who facilitated this fraud in the Interior Ministry. He did not sack his attorney general or the COS who are all part of this fraud. He ordered the sack of Maina even when he knew that the Civil Service Rule did not give him the powers to sack any civil servant.

To further prove his active connivance as the head of these moral criminals, economic gangsters, Mr. Buhari ordered that MainaGate be investigated and the report submitted to his Chief Of Staff, Abba Kyari, the same Abba Kyari who reportedly masterminded the reinstatement and double promotion of a wanted criminal.

When did Abba Kyari become a saint? This is same Abba Kyari who purportedly collected N500 million from MTN management to mitigate its legal punishment for defrauding Nigerians. While MTN top management staffers who bribed Abba Kyari have been sacked, Abba Kyari remains Buhari's COS. You may wish to ask again why did Buhari refuse to act on the report that indicted his COS? What happened to the report on Mr. Grasscutter who stole millions from IDPs and was even defended by Buhari? What of the Ikoyi Dollars?

Was Zakari Biu, the sacked police commissioner who facilitated the escape of Boko Haram Kabiru Sokoto, not recalled and re-instated? Is the discredited Ibrahim Lamorde not currently serving as a senior police officer? How about Buratai and his Dubai property? What of Abdulrahman Dambazau, Buhari's interior minister, and his U.S mansion?

The 2015 presidential election was not a victory for President Buhari, it was a rejection of President Jonathan's corrupt government. Nigerians wanted a replacement for a girly-girly President who believe stealing is not corruption. President Buhari has turned out to be more corrupt now than his predecessor.

Even at that, Buhari's past can't be separated from his present glorification of corruption. He did not only served the most brutal and corrupt government of Abacha, he equally swore by all the seven gods of Daura that Abacha was not corrupt. This is same Buhari who violated his first campaign promise of publicly declaring his assets. It's only a question of time before Nigeria goes completely downhills as the most intrinsically corrupt country in the world, after Somalia.

Erasmus, A Public Affairs Analyst Writes from Lagos.
Email: ikhideerasmus@gmail.com
Follow me on twitter @ikhide_erasmus1

Source: Sahara Reporters

President Muhammadu Buhari has, since taking office in 2015, sought help from several nations to recover money he said was taken from public coffers.

It is not immediately clear who deposited the money in Britain. The money was frozen at the request of prosecutors as a result of an Italian investigation. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by British authorities.

The investigations into the $1.3 billion sale in 2011 of oil prospecting licence (OPL) 245, which could hold more than 9 billion barrels of oil, have involved Italian, Nigerian and Dutch authorities and two of the world’s largest international oil companies.

It was initially awarded in 1998 to Malabu Oil and Gas before Royal Dutch Shell and Eni were awarded the rights in 2011 for $1.3 billion.

Shell has said it was aware that some of the payments it made to Nigeria for rights to the oilfield would go to Malabu, a company associated with former Nigerian oil minister and convicted money launderer Dan Etete.

“Nigeria had recently recovered the sum of $85 million from the controversial Malabu Restrained Funds from United Kingdom,” said the office of the attorney general, Abubakar Malam, in a statement late on Thursday based on his remarks at an asset recovery event in the capital, Abuja.

The money is part of funds related to OPL 245 payments that have been frozen in bank accounts around the world.

In the same statement, the attorney general’s office said negotiations with Switzerland on the repatriation of $321 million stolen by former military leader Sani Abacha had concluded.

He said a memorandum of understanding would be signed in early December and repatriation of the funds would follow a few weeks later.

Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, has accused Abacha of stealing up to $5 billion of public money during the five years he ran the oil-rich country, from 1993 until he died in 1998.

Source: Reuters