Ebun Francis || The Ministry of Interior has given reasons why the suspended former chairman of the disbanded presidential task force on pension reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina was reinstated.
An online publication had on Friday reported that the indicted pencom reform boss was secretly reabsorbed into the federal civil service with the alleged assistance of the Minister of Interior, Abdulraham Dambazau.
Maina was previously indicted for being complicit in the over N2 billion pension biometrics scam in the office of the head of service of the federation and is currently on the run from the law.
The Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau through his press secretary, Ehisiemen Osaigbovo confirmed that Maina is now in charge of human resources in the ministry.
According to the statement, Maina “was posted few days ago to the Ministry of Interior by the Office of the Head of Service on an Acting capacity to fill a vacancy created following the retirement of the Director heading the Human Resources Department in the Ministry”.
The statement placed the responsibility for the recall of the former pencom reform helmsman on the shoulders of the office of the Head of Service of the Federation and the Civil Service Commission.
In the words of Osaigbovo,“issues relating to Discipline, Employment, Re-engagement, Posting, Promotion and Retirements of Federal Civil Servants.”
“It is understood that Maina’s last posting was with the Ministry of Interior, and that is probably why he was re-posted back to the Ministry.”
The Maina saga began in 2012 when he was accused of leading a massive pension fraud scheme amounting to more than N100 billion after he was drafted by the Goodluck Jonathan administration in 2010 to sanitize a corrupt pension system.
Based on the allegation of corruption, Mr. Maina was invited by the Senate Joint Committee on Public Service and Establishment and State and Local Government Administration.
The Senate after completion of its investigation issued a Warrant of Arrest against Mr. Maina.
Maina disagreed with the outcome of the Senate investigation and subsequently sued the Senate and the then Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, and thereafter went into hiding after being declared wanted by the police.
Maina was subsequently dismissed by the Head of Service for allegedly absconding from duty.