By John Okoh
Maina
The Presidency has blamed loyalists to the predecessor government of Goodluck Jonathan for the reinstatement of the former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina, who was ordered sacked from office on Monday following a huge public outcry that greeted the discovery that the felonf acing billions of Naira fraud charges, had been reinstated, promoted and paid a salary backlog of N22 million.
Garba Shehu, who is the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, stated in Abuja on Wednesday that Maina is “one of the monsters’’ and mess left behind by the Jonathan administration to frustrate the fight against corruption by the Buhari government”
He said: “ Maina was one of the monsters created by the former PDP government, and which are still rearing their ugly heads long after the Party was soundly defeated in the 2015 elections.
“Over and over again, the President Buhari government has pointed out that the administration’s greatest problem is the mess left behind by the previous government. Maina is just one more example.’’
“Top officials in the PDP government, from sectoral heads, to those charged with responsibility for law and order received some of these billions of Naira from Maina.
“We have all the transaction records and these are matters that the EFCC has been pursuing to ensure that they all have their day in court.”
“Everything will be uncovered in due course. “This just goes to show us the scale of corruption that this government is fighting. And, as we can all see, corruption keeps fighting back viciously,’’ he added. He made the statement in response to the criticism of the Peoples Democratic Party of the saga surrounding Maina’s reinstatement.
The PDP, on Monday, had called for immediate arrest and prosecution of Abdulrasheed Maina, a former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, wanted for alleged fraud.
In a statement by National Publicity Secretary of its National Caretaker Committee, Mr Dayo Adeyeye the party called for the arrest and prosecution of those who aided the return of Maina to the country after his disappearance for several years, and his restoration to his duty post with added promotion. It called for immediate sack of the Minister of Interior, Gen. Abdulrahman Danbazzau (rtd) and Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, for restoring Maina to office against good conscience.
Shehu in his statement overlooked the claim by Maina’s brother at a news conference in Kaduna that the Buhari government invited Maina to work with it only to be frustrated by an unnamed cabal, who is rattled by Maina’s honesty and transparency. He did not however name those in the cabal.
