The former Chairman of the dissolved Pension Reform Task Team [PRTT], Abdulrasheed Maina who has been on the run since he was declared wanted by the National Assembly today surfaced from wherever it is he has been hiding and immediately embarked on a thank you as well as a victory tour round the capital city of Abuja.
Clad in a white babanriga with a black cap to match, Maina went straight to the office of the NUJ FCT Chairman, Chuks Ehirim for discussions and to thank him and his colleagues for standing with him when the national assembly heat was on him.
Maina who categorically told journalists at the NUJ secretariat that he never went into hiding as fed the media by the police, adding that he never left his house in Abuja throughout the period police claimed he has been declared wanted said “I do not bear any grudges against anybody and I do not consider anybody as my enemy”.
Maina had been accused of stealing over N21 billion from the pension funds in his care. Both chambers of the National Assembly had unanimously voted for the dismissal of Maina, an Assistant Director in the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pensions Office, CIPPO, who was appointed to run the PRTT for 30 months after the lawmakers discovered that he had been overwhelmed by scandals involving pensions funds management running into billions of Naira.
After a stand-off with the presidency over its failure to act on resolutions passed by the entire national assembly, the federal government deceitfully pretended to have sacked Maina and got the police to declare him wanted while the embattled pension task force boss was asked to go underground. A principal officer of the senate told iReports-ng.com in Abuja today that “the insincerity of the presidency over the fight against corruption was totally exposed to us when in the heat of the Maina’s controversy after the senate had ordered his arrest, same man was seen walking into President Jonathan’s office with security escorts while other senior government officials were seated and have been waiting for hours to see the same president. Imagine the senate leader, Senator Ndoma Egba was right there and some of them had to leave the president’s office. This infuriated all of us and our colleagues in the House of Reps.”
The local media was used to sell the dummy that Maina had fled the country even while remains in Abuja with tacit instructions to security agencies not to touch him. The warrant of arrest issued on him was quashed by a court in Abuja last week to pave the way for Maina to return to the centre stage and enjoy his loot. Indeed, he started that today with his sudden appearance at the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ office in Abuja today.
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