Ebun Francis || President Mohammadu Buhari has ordered the immediate disengagement from service of Abdulahi Abdulrasheed Maina, the former chairman of the presidential task force on pension reforms.
The Presidents directive, according to a statement by Femi Adesina, the senior special assistant to the President, was contained in a memo to the office of the head of service which directed the Head of Service to explain the circumstances surrounding the recall of the fugitive civil servant and posting to the ministry of interior.
The report is to be submitted to the office of the President before the close of work on Monday.
An online publication had last 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 in 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.
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.