The Department of State Services (DSS) has arrested Faisal Maina, son of former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, ending a six-year manhunt for the convicted fugitive who fled Nigeria after jumping bail in a money-laundering case.
Faisal, who was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison in absentia, was arrested by DSS operatives in the Karsana area of Abuja following intelligence that he had secretly returned to the country.
Security sources said he has since been handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which prosecuted the case that resulted in his conviction.
“His arrest followed credible intelligence which indicated that Faisal had secretly returned to the country,” a source familiar with the operation said.
The development potentially clears the way for the enforcement of the seven-year prison sentence imposed on Faisal following the decision of the Court of Appeal, which affirmed his conviction but reduced the original 14-year sentence handed down by the Federal High Court.
Faisal’s legal troubles date back to his prosecution by the EFCC on a three-count charge bordering on money laundering.
Although he was granted bail during the trial, he subsequently breached the conditions attached to his release and disappeared in 2020.
His disappearance did not stop the criminal proceedings, as the Federal High Court in Abuja continued the trial in his absence.
In October 2021, Justice Okon Abang convicted Faisal on money-laundering charges and sentenced him to a total of 14 years’ imprisonment.
The court held that the EFCC successfully established that Faisal operated a fictitious bank account through which funds linked to his father were laundered.
According to the prosecution’s case accepted by the court, the United Bank for Africa account, operated in the name of “Alhaji Faisal Farm 2”, was used to receive N58.1 million.
The court found that Faisal and his father withdrew the money between October 2013 and June 2019.
Justice Abang consequently convicted him and imposed the prison term while Faisal remained outside the reach of Nigerian law enforcement authorities.
However, in November 2022, the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction but reduced his sentence from 14 years to seven years.
The appellate court ruled that the Federal High Court ought not to have imposed the maximum sentence on Faisal, considering that he was a first-time offender.
His latest arrest marks a dramatic turn in a case that had remained unresolved for years because of his disappearance.
It also revives attention on one of Nigeria’s most prominent pension-fraud cases, which embroiled both Faisal and his father and resulted in separate convictions.
Abdulrasheed Maina headed the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, later known as the Pension Reform Task Team, which was established to address irregularities and widespread fraud in the country’s pension system.
Maina subsequently became the subject of investigations and prosecution over the diversion and laundering of pension funds.
In November 2021, the Federal High Court in Abuja convicted him on money-laundering charges involving about N2 billion and sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment.
His prosecution attracted widespread public attention, particularly because he had previously left Nigeria amid investigations, only to return and controversially regain a position in the Federal Civil Service before being dismissed following public outrage.
Maina served his prison term at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja and was released earlier in 2026.
However, his legal troubles resurfaced following reports that authorities declared him wanted in connection with a separate allegation of “receiving stolen property.”
The arrest of Faisal now brings the younger Maina back within the reach of Nigerian authorities nearly six years after he breached his bail conditions and fled, despite a subsisting appellate court judgment affirming his money-laundering conviction and seven-year prison sentence.
