Nigeria's anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), have stormed the multi-million Naira mansion of Maina at the federal capital, Abuja and sealed it off.
Abdulrasheed Maina
Few days after being smuggled into the Federal Civil Service and promoted as an acting Director in the Ministry of Interior, raising concerns about the anti-corruption war of the present administration, wanted fugitive, Abdulrasheed Maina, have gone underground again.
Recall that the President Muhamamdu Buhari promptly moved to rescue its battered image on Monday by ordering the
second sack of Maina and probe of those behind his clandestine pardon, reinstatement and promotion into the service not minding his alleged monumental looting of pension funds running into hundreds of millions of Naira.
The order by President Buhari for his immediate sack and the resolve by EFCC to fish him out by all means to face justice might have forced Maina, who was declared wanted by the EFCC in 2015, to go underground apparently to avoid being apprehended.
According to Vanguard, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Monday, stormed one of the mansions which Maina reportedly bought with $2 million while serving as the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms in 2012.
It was gathethered that armed EFCC operatives descended on the sprawling edifice located at No. 10 Hamisu Musa Road, Jabi, with the inscription ‘EFCC Keep Off’.
The mansion had earlier been marked by the EFCC but Maina erased the marks and carried on as if he did nothing to warrant such action by the agency.
It was learnt that many other property said to have been acquired by Maina were being identified by the anti-graft agency for possible forfeiture to the federal government.
The Spokesman for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed the renewed efforts by the agency to fish out Maina to account for his actions while acting as the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, during which he is alleged to have made away with funds worth N2 billion.
Meanwhile, checks in the Ministry of Interior, where he had been promoted as an acting director in charge of Human Resources via a letter dated October 2, 2017, showed that he did not report to that office to join other workers as worked resumed on Monday.
The Spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Mr.Willie Bassey, the denied knowledge of Maina’s presence or posting to the ministry but admitted reading about the controversies surrounding his reinstatement and posting to the office.
But the Minister of Interior, Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, had on Sunday confirmed that it was the Head of Service of the Federation that posted Maina to his office and said he played no role in the entire process.
Apparently in a bid to ward off public enquiry about his travails, Maina has tactically switched off all his three known GSM lines.
A call put to one of the lines on Monday afternoon reported that the line could not take any call at ‘this time’ while the other two indicated that they had all been switched off.