The former Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, has petitioned the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), demanding a review of the criminal charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Maina wants the AGF to, in the interest of justice, prevent the travesty, abuse of public office and malicious prosecutions being carried out by the EFCC against him by bringing his trial to a halt.
The former pension boss is also praying Malami to review all the files involving him to ensure that his prosecution, “is not malicious, mala-fide and borne out of narrow interests to prevent accountability for the assets kept in the custody of the EFCC’”.
In the petition dated August 31, 2020, written by Barrister Edwin Inegedu on behalf of Maina said, “It is our further brief that our client’s persecution by the EFCC came to a head under the leadership of Ibrahim Magu.
“This was principally due to our client‘s demand that the EFCC should account for the sums and properties recovered by the PRTT, and kept in the EFCC’s custody” the petitioner stated.
The demand by Maina, according to the petitioner, “Became necessary as our client was consistently accused by EFCC of diversion of the funds recovered instead of accounting for the sums and properties in its custody”.
Maina claimed that the EFCC maintained a campaign of calumny against him to obfuscate the issues and divert attention from its inability to account for the properties warehoused with it.
“It is also pertinent to add that our client has, despite the hordes of persecution and attacks on his person, aided the Federal Government in a further recovery of N1.3 trillion recently.
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“It is thus imperative to state that our client has at all times performed in the best interest of the nation despite that his good intentions have become a subject of a witch-hunt by the EFCC in recent times.
“The charges preferred against our client is a clear testimony of the abuse of prosecutorial powers and arbitrariness.
“It is an attempt at ensuring that our client remains perpetually damaged in his reputation and to render him incapable of voicing out the full extent of the good work his team carried out in the recovery of monies and properties for the benefit of the government at large” Maina’s lawyer stated.
Appointed to that role by former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, Maina said, in the course of his assignment as the Chairman of the team, the sum of N1.63 trillion and a total of 237 properties were recovered by the team comprising of representatives of the EFCC, DSS, ONSA, police etc.
“All of the sums and the properties recovered were kept in the custody of the EFCC” the petitioner stated.
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