Maina: Outrage as Danbazzau, Head of Service trade blames

President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, angrily ordered the immediate dismissal from the civil service of the federation, of Abdulrasheed Maina, the erstwhile boss of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms.

President Buhari was greatly embarrassed by the outrage that followed the recall and repositioning of Maina as a director, having abandoned the service upon the indictments raised against him on the misuse of an estimated N100 billion from the pension funds of the country.

The controversy over the recall again exposed the frail relationships within the administration as the Head of Service, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, accused the Minister of Interior, General Abdulrahman Dambazau, of lying against her, following his earlier claim that her office posted Maina to the Ministry of Interior as a director. Meanwhile, the move was shadowed by diverse commendations and condemnations from different stakeholders. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, challenged the President to follow up the action by sacking Abdulrahman Dambazzau and Abubakar Malami, Ministers of Interior and Justice respectively over their alleged role in the surprised reinstatement of Maina into the civil service of the federation.

The PDP said even though protecting subverts has become part of the administration’s work ethic, it would not be silenced by what it claimed as the apparent determination of the All Progressives Congress, APC, administration to keep a deaf ear to such. Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State on his part, called Maina’s sack an afterthought saying it was done to save office. Prof. Itse Sagay, Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti Corruption, PACAC, also called for the prosecution of those who absorbed Maina back into the service. The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL on its part said the development tended to validate claims of the existence of a corruption network within the administration. President Buhari’s order for the sack of Maina was, however, welcomed by the Comrade Ayuba Wabba-led Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC. Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, yesterday raided two houses belonging to Maina in Abuja and sealed them off.

The action followed outrage across the country over reports that Maina, who became a fugitive from justice had been reinstated into the civil service of the federation and given double promotion, despite indictments raised against him pertaining to the misuse of pension funds. The president’s move to dismiss Maina was conveyed through a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, who said the president also ordered an investigation into how Maina came to be recalled. The sacking of Maina Adesina said:  “In a memo to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the President equally demanded a full report of the circumstances of Maina’s recall and posting to the Ministry of Interior. “The report is to be submitted to the office of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari, before the end of work today, Monday, October 23, 2017.”

A Presidency source,last night said: ‘’I have confirmation that the Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, has brought report on the re-engagement of Abdulrasheed Maina as directed by the President.  This is being studied as other reports are being awaited.’’ Maina was sacked from the civil service in 2013 and was placed on the wanted list of the International Police, INTERPOL, by the EFCC. Vanguard learned, yesterday, that despite arguments put forward to justify the recall of Maina as being based on a court order obtained from a Magistrate’s Court that the president was particularly peeved by the fact that the same Maina had abandoned his job for close to three years. “The president could not understand how someone, who left his job for more than three years, could just have been recalled and promoted like that,” a senior presidency official said yesterday. He nevertheless affirmed that the Maina issue was a carry over from the Goodluck Jonathan administration. “You recall that Maina as head of the Pension Task Force had told a meeting in the Presidential Villa, how the pension funds were shared and when he left the meeting, his vehicle was fired at, and maybe, that was how he fled from the country.”