By Ikechukwu Amaechi
The unfolding “Mainagate” which is rocking the
pretentious Muhammadu Buhari presidency is classical Nigerian drama. Alhaji
Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman of the defunct Presidential Task Force on
Pension Reforms, who was accused of dipping his fingers into the pension honey
pot, and fled the country in 2015, sauntered back noisily as if nothing
happened.
*Abdulrasheed Maina |
On July 21, 2015, the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) charged him, along with others, to a Federal High Court on a
24-count charge bordering on procurement fraud including falsified biometric
contracts, which resulted in the alleged mismanagement of over N2 billion of
pension funds with which he allegedly acquired choice mansions in Abuja . EFCC claimed that
one of such properties is a mansion in the posh Jabi Lake
area of the FCT, which he bought in June 2012 while he was still pension
reforms boss, at a mindboggling sum of $2 million.
And guess what? He paid cash.
Rather than face trial, Maina fled the country and the
EFCC declared him wanted on November 2, 2015.
Then, two years into the Buhari presidency, he
returned, but not quietly. An Igbo adage says a child sent to steal by his
father does not approach his victim’s house stealthily. He rather kicks doors
open with a bang.
Rather than lie low, his posters surfaced announcing
his governorship ambition in his home state of Borno come 2019. As if that was
not audacious enough, he showed up at the Ministry of Interior, behind a huge
mahogany desk, and wait for it, not as Assistant Director, his previous
position, but acting Director in-charge of human resources department and a
whopping sum of N22 million was doled out to him as arrears of his unpaid
salary since he was sacked from the civil service in 2013.
For Maina, no home-coming could be sweeter and more
rewarding. He was in the company of his “brethren,” a blue-blood and sacred
cow, who knows the right strings to pull. And pull he did! Yet, like in every
conspiracy, something went terribly wrong.*President Buhari |
For now, nobody knows what happened and knowing the
character of the Buhari presidency, nobody may know because knowing will be a
huge embarrassment to the government.
But I hazard a guess. Maina’s posters may have angered
or frightened some politicians who decided to put a permanent end to the brazen
impunity or some senior civil servants who saw him as an arrogant usurper just
remembered that he was still a fugitive and blew the whistle. The rest, to
borrow a cliché, is now history.
The din of the whistle resonated loudly, thus
provoking a national outrage unprecedented in the over two-year Buhari
presidency and seriously called to question his and APC’s anti-corruption
pretentions.
On an apparent damage control mission, the president’s
garrulous Special Assistant on Prosecution, Okoi Obono-Obla, weighed in on the
matter on Monday, arguing on Channels Television that no court had found Maina
guilty of any offence.
“If he has not been found guilty of any offence, I do
not see why some people are outraged by his purported re-absorption into the
federal civil service,” he said.
But because his argument was hollow and could not
extinguish the raging fire, the president was forced to personally wade in by
ordering Maina’s immediate disengagement from the civil service.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the immediate
disengagement from service of Mr. Abdullahi Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman
of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms," Femi Adesina, his
media aide, said in a statement. The president also demanded a “full report of
the circumstances of Maina’s recall and posting to the Ministry of Interior,”
from the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
The EFCC went on overdrive, dramatizing the sealing off
of Maina’s Jabi mansion, while claiming it had ordered a manhunt. “Our
detectives are on standby to arrest him any moment from now. We are already
trailing his whereabouts. As of Sunday, he was said to have shifted base to Kaduna ,” the Ibrahim
Magu-led commission bellowed.
And Nigerians are chuckling at the childishness on
national display in the name of governance! Why didn’t the EFCC seal off the
property before now? The drama is déjàvu.
And the dramatis personae started crawling out of the
power crevices with accusations, counter-accusations and denials. The Interior
Minister, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd.), was the first to absolve
himself of complicity.
In a statement by his press secretary, Ehisienmen
Osaigbovo, Dambazau, who said Maina was deployed to the ministry in acting
capacity to fill a vacancy following the retirement of the director in charge
of the human resources department, pushed the blame to the Federal Civil
Service Commission and the office of the Head of Service of the Federation.
“For the avoidance of doubt, issues relating to
discipline, employment, re-engagement, posting, promotion and retirement of
federal civil servants are the responsibility of the Federal Civil Service
Commission and the office of the Head of Service of the Federation …,” Danbazau
said.
The Head of Service, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, pushed
back, literally calling him a liar.
“The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation
wishes to inform the public that the reinstatement and posting of Alhaji
Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina never emanated from the Office of the Head of the
Civil Service of the Federation,” she said in a statement signed by her
Assistant Director, Media Relations, Mohammed Manga.
So, who did? Who cleared Maina to come back home,
ordered his reinstatement in the civil service, gave him double promotion and
paid him N22 million salary arrears?
There is something creepy about the Buhari-led APC
government. It evokes a feeling of nastiness in the citizenry, a government
that is at odds with the truth, that hugs propaganda and cant with relish, a
government far less altruistic than it claims, that is selectively deaf and
dumb.
There is evidence that Maina was visiting home in all
the months the EFCC declared him wanted. There are documents in circulation now
which show that his reinstatement was at the behest of the Attorney General of
the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami. The Federal Civil
Service Commission (FCSC) held a meeting on Wednesday, August 16, to consider
the minister’s letter and recommendations of the Senior Staff Committee (SSC)
of the Interior Ministry. The meeting approved Maina’s reinstatement into the
Federal Civil Service with effect from the date he was dismissed, February 21,
2013.
The questions that have concentrated the minds of many
are: How could the presidency claim to be unaware of all these shenanigans?
Who, in this government, could have the audacity to pull this political stunt
without President Buhari’s buy-in or the knowledge of his surrogates, those who
are in tune with his body language – members of the infamous cabal? In whose
name did the Attorney-General initiate the move to reinstate Maina? Is it not
possible that what happened was a gesture of appreciation to a generous
benefactor by a grateful political party that still remembers the benevolent
spirits that helped it crack its political kernel in 2015? So, how could the
party apparatchik and its supreme leader plead ignorance as they are doing now?
But if it is, indeed, true that this was done over
Buhari’s head, what does it say of his presidency and quality of his
leadership?
Is it possible that Maina, a man on the wanted list of
the EFCC, a fugitive on the run from the long arm of the Nigerian law, will
come back to Nigeria
without the knowledge of immigration officials, EFCC, DSS, and the police? It
is reported that he is guarded by armed operatives of the Lawal Daura-led DSS
and policemen. Who approved that?
What is happening in this country today in the name of
governance, with strategy as clear as mud, would have been good comic relief if
not that our collective destiny is at stake.
The only consolation, though, is that the joke is on
Buhari who promised Nigerians “change” with pugnacious rhetoric, yet two years
and five months down the road, serves them the same sour dish of yesterday.
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