The disgraced former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina, who was jailed for stealing over N2 billion from pensioners, received an award from the Garki, Abuja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) on Thursday.
Mr Maina, who left the prison unannounced last year, also used the event to call for an intensified investigation into former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, claiming that more funds could be recovered from Mr Malami.
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Mr Maina, neck adorned with a muffler with an inscription, ‘Patron, NBA Garki branch,’ was honoured with the Rule of Law and Courage Award by the Garki branch of the NBA at an event which held at a venue on Jimmy Carter Street, Asokoro, Abuja, on Thursday.
“What the government has seen so far may only be a fraction. My speciality is the recovery of public funds. We can recover more. There must be accountability, transparency, and the rule of law. Malami should be properly prosecuted and investigated again because he has not been properly investigated,” he said.
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“All these things happened during the last administration. I don’t believe this could happen in this administration,” Mr Maina added.
Mr Malami is currently standing trial alongside his son and wife over allegations of money laundering. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned them, and they were subsequently remanded at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja. He was later granted bail but was promptly rearrested by the State Security Service.
“Malami allegedly stole a lot of funds. What the government has seen so far is not even one quarter,” Mr Maina said. “We can recover these funds from Malami. There is more than what has been seen. What is 270 billion? Yes, the government is doing the right thing. There must be accountability, transparency and the rule of law, which is what I see the government doing as against what the last.”
Mr Maina said some powerful persons in the former administration orchestrated his corruption saga. Recalling the time he jumped bail, Mr Maina said he was flown out of the country by the government’s aircraft for medical care, but officials turned around and arrested him in the Niger Republic for jumping bail.
The convicted pension thief was appointed by the then Goodluck Jonathan administration in 2010 to sanitise a corrupt pension system. The assignment included enrolling pensioners through biometric verification to eliminate ghost workers.
According to his indictment by the EFCC, Mr Maina stole billions of naira from public funds through fraudulent contracts.
In the charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/256/2019, the EFCC alleged that Mr Maina used fictitious names to open and operate various bank accounts. He also recruited his relatives, who were bankers, to operate fake bank accounts through which illicit funds were channelled.
Three of his biological siblings – two sisters and one brother – appeared in court as prosecution witnesses to testify against him. Her two sisters told the court how Mr Maina fraudulently obtained their details and utility bills to open accounts for his Common Input Property and Investment Ltd, with which he perpetrated the fraud he was convicted for. The company too was convicted along with him and ordered to be wound up by the court.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that Nigerian banks played a central role in the N2 billion pension fraud perpetrated by Mr Maina. United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Fidelity Bank Plc were said to have served as conduits through which he channelled the stolen funds to defraud pensioners.
He fled Nigeria in 2013 and was subsequently declared wanted by the EFCC. He was eventually arrested and indicted for money laundering in 2019.
After fleeing trial, Mr Maina was rearrested in Niger Republic following an Interpol red notice and extradited to Nigeria.
In November 2021, he was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for money laundering offences involving N2 Billion in pension funds.
Reading the judgement, Judge Okon Abang said Mr Maina treated hapless pensioners with “disdain and levity.” While underscoring the plight of the pensioners whom the former official stole from, Mr Abang said at the time, “Some have suffered and died while waiting for their reward.”
“The facts of this case are sordid, immoral, and morbid,” the judge noted, adding that, “the facts portray the moral decadence in Nigeria.”
Before the sentence was handed down, Mr Maina was allowed to articulate his plea for mercy. “My Lord, I want to apologise for anything that I may have done,” the convict said.
The Court of Appeal in November 2022 affirmed the conviction and 14 years of jail time for Mr Maina’s son, Faisal Maina, over money laundering charges involving the diversion of pension funds.
On Thursday, however, Mr Maina turned around and denied wrongdoing at the NBA event. Instead, he said Mr Malami and other top forces in the Buhari administration were after him.
It could not be ascertained exactly when Mr Maina, who was jailed eight years in 2021, left the prison. But a close associate said he completed his term and quietly returned home in February 2025, based on the correctional centre services’ calculations of period of incarceration.
Thursday’s event appeared to be one of his first public appearances since his release from prison.
Claims of whistleblower agreement
Mr Maina also alleged that in 2017, he was invited to meet senior Nigerian government officials in Abu Dhabi, including Mr Malami, who was the Attorney-General at the time. He claimed he was asked to return and help Nigeria recover stolen public funds under a whistleblower agreement.
“They begged me, and I refused to come to Nigeria,” Mr Maina said. “They went back to Nigeria and made my mother insist that I come back to Nigeria because Jonathan had told them that I recovered 1.63 trillion during his time; this can be ascertained by Okonjo-Iweala, a former finance minister under Mr Jonathan.”
He alleged that the federal government under former President Muhammadu Buhari failed to honour a whistleblower agreement under which he claims to have helped recover stolen public funds totalling $1.3 trillion, alongside additional assets valued at $88 billion.
“Working under that agreement, I helped recover $1.3tn for the Nigerian people and secured additional assets valued at $88bn. The terms were clear. I was entitled to five per cent of the recovered $1.3tn, which is $65bn, but to this day it has not been paid,” he said.
“I started asking simple questions about 227 recovered properties placed in government custody. Where are they today? Who is managing them? What has Nigeria gained from those properties? Instead of answers, I faced threats,” he said.
Mr Maina also claimed that his son was drawn into the matter unfairly.
“My son was accused over issues said to be from 2010, when he was only 11 years old, not because of what he did, but because of what his father stands for,” he said.
He further alleged that in 2019, his son’s car was attacked. “At 19, the car he was driving was hit with 57 bullets. He survived. After that, he was detained and brutalised. I am not asking for pity. I am asking for accountability and basic human decency,” he said.
Mr Maina questioned how the recovered funds and assets were managed.
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“How was the $1.3tn accounted for and applied? Where are the 227 properties? Who is responsible for them? Why was a signed agreement dishonoured? I have filed petitions, and I welcome an independent review. The records exist,” he said.
He also denied ever being a signatory to any account linked to pension funds, adding that all relevant banking records had been submitted to the appropriate authorities.
“We never had any account in the name of ‘Pension Reform tax team.’ It has never existed. All the banks are there, and you can approach them. I have given the NBA my petition, the banks’ signatures, and the signature cards,” he said.
