Mainagate: Is President Buhari Still Mr. Integrity

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

The video on Channels Television was dramatic.

The event was the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday and the dramatis personae were the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who obviously was the arbiter, but never uttered a word, even as he listened with rapt attention, the embattled Head of Service (HoS), Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, who was the most agitated, the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, whose action(s) or inaction seemed to be the reason for the testy tango, and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (retd).

*President Buhari 

It was a full house of ministers and other top government officials including the leadership of both the National Assembly and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and military top brass, who were waiting for the arrival of President Muhammadu Buhari for the commencement of the meeting.

The audio quality of the video was poor and nobody could hear what was being said but the facial expressions, gesticulations and general body language of all the actors said it all. When Mrs. Oyo-Ita could no longer take the heat, she walked off in a huff, back to her seat, still seething.

Maina: The Joke Is On APC, Buhari

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.