I will open can of worms against cabal, says Maina

Abdulrasheed Maina

Declares he was invited by government to
serve
• ‘ PDP can ’ t attack Buhari over ex - pension
boss ’

The former Chairman of the Presidential
Committee on Pension Reforms,
Abdulrasheed Maina , threatened
yesterday to open a can of worms and
implicate what he called a cabal in the
government of President Muhammadu
Buhari.

Disclosing Maina ’ s position in a
statement, his family said that he was
invited to join the Buhari government.

“ It is on record that Abdulrasheed Maina
‘s reform put a stop to fraudulent
withdrawal of huge sums from both the
Nigerian Pension Board and the Nigerian
Police Pension Board . Perhaps it is his
noble effort that made him enviable to
the present administration when they
came into power to convince him to
come back and assist in its change
agenda, ” the family said.

Maina was sacked in 2013 for his
involvement in a N 100 billion pension
scam. He later turned down summonses
from authorities before fleeing the
country .

But Maina reappeared in the country as a
deputy director in the Ministry of
Interior.

Following public outcry , Buhari recently
ordered Maina ’s sacking and probe into
how he returned into the country and
was posted to the ministry.

But yesterday, the family of Maina came
to his defence, saying he was in
possession of facts capable of exposing
the cabal after him.

In a statement by a member of the
family, Aliyu Maina , he stated that Maina
was not a fraudster , but a messiah who
brought remarkable reforms into the
Nigerian pension scheme, as the reform
under him averted fraudulent
withdrawal and syphoning of pension
funds.

The statement reads : “ You must have
noticed the recent attempt by some cabal
to ridicule and tarnish the image of the
Maina family in both social, electronic
and print media . where our brother,
father and uncle have been blackmailed
as a fraudster . The cabal has gone to the
extent of marking our house in red
paints with an inscription of Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC ).

“ The entire family of Abdullahi Maina
hereby categorically states that our son is
not in any way a fraudster , rather he is a
messiah whose effort saw the
disappearance of pensioners roaming the
streets of F .C. T and other state capitals.

“ We are aware that all this act of
calumny is not targeted against
Abdulrasheed Maina but the President of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the
Office of the Attorney General.”

The family said it had contacted its
solicitors and instructed them to act . “ We
equally know that Abdulrasheed Maina is
in possession of so many facts that is
against the cabal and interesting to the
Nigeria populace , which he will disclose
soonest. One must ask whether it is an
offence for somebody to serve his
father’s land faithfully ,” the statement
concluded.

Meanwhile, the Presidency has insisted
that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP )
has no moral rectitude to level any
accusation against the current
government in respect of Maina.

In a statement yesterday, Senior Special
Assistant to the President on Media and
Publicity , Garba Shehu described Maina
as one of the monsters created by the
former PDP government, and which are
still rearing their ugly heads long after
the party was soundly defeated in the
2015 elections.

“ Over and over again , the President
Buhari government has pointed out that
the administration ’s greatest problem is
the mess left behind by the previous
government. Maina is just one more
example,” he said.

Referring to records from the
investigations that led to the disgrace of
the former pension boss and his being
declared wanted by the EFCC , Shehu
noted that Maina was not the only top
member of the former government
involved in the multi- billion naira
pensions scandal, but a man warmly
ensconced in the bosom of power.

“ Top officials in the PDP government,
from sectorial heads to those charged
with responsibility for law and order,
received some of these billions of naira
from Maina . We have all the transaction
records and the