The last may not have been heard of the reinstatement to the civil service and promotion, of Abdulrasheed Maina, the erstwhile boss of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, who is wanted for allegedly stealing N100b from pension fund.
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Maina’s recently reinstatement to the service after going into hiding in 2013 when the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, charged him to court alongside a former Head of Service, Steve Oronsaye, and two others over alleged biometric pension fraud, has brought to fore the inability of the EFCC to arrest him.
Maina, who fled the country and was declared wanted by the EFCC returned four months into President Muhammadu Buhari government.
Reports said the anti-graft agency had been on the trail of the fugitive since his return.
It was alleged that operatives of Department of State Security Service, DSS, had been shielding him from EFCC’s arrest.
Until the lid on his reinstatement was blown off, Maina allegedly lived in one of the intelligence agency’s property and moved around with escorts.
“We have traced him to a hotel in Kaduna where he went to spend the weekend; we know that the DSS is protecting him and the DG DSS, deployed men to protect him. But make no mistake, we will arrest him, already we’ve frozen all his accounts,” Punch quoted an EFCC source as saying.
But DSS has washed it hands from the recall and reinstatement of Maina.
It said in a statement: “The DSS, hereby, states categorically that it has no hand in the recall or reinstatement of Mr Abdullahi Abdulrasheed Maina.
“There was no correspondence of any sort between the DSS and the Head of Service with respect to Mr. Maina. The DSS is not investigating him nor handling any matter connected to Maina and neither has the DSS ever forwarded any correspondence to Mr President or any arm of government for the recall or reinstatement of Maina.
“The Service is aware that Mr. Maina is a civil servant and any disciplinary action as regards Maina’s official conduct will, therefore, be handled as required by the civil service rules. So it will, therefore, be absurd for anybody to imply or insinuate that the DSS has a hand in the recall or reinstatement of Maina.”
