Maina’s Recall, Grand Conspiracy Against Buhari’s Govt – Ogunye

Maina’s Recall, Grand Conspiracy Against Buhari’s Govt – Ogunye

A legal practitioner, Mr Jiti Ogunye has described the reported recall and promotion of an embattled former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, as a grand conspiracy against Buhari-led administration.

Maina was declared wanted by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for an alleged N2bn pensions biometric fraud in November 2015, a 24-count bothering on procurement fraud and obtaining money under false pretence.

He reportedly disappeared from public glare only to resurface in October 2017, to take charge as an Acting Director in the Ministry of Interior with his return sparking reactions and outrage.

After much outrages, President Buhari on Monday ordered Maina’s immediate disengagement from the civil service, calling for an investigation into how he was recalled despite being on EFCC’s wanted list.

Appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the public analyst said, “We are dealing with a grand conspiracy against the people of Nigeria, the Nigerian state and from what we can see, the President as distinct from the Presidency has done, a conspiracy against the President himself.

“By the President’s action, it is obvious that he didn’t know what was happening behind him. And so why do I call it a grand conspiracy? Maina who has been a fugitive from justice and is a scofflaw. He is scofflaw in the sense that he has defiled the Nigerian state, he has defiled every institution.

“He has defiled the serving Senate, the EFCC which is in the Executive branch of government, he defiled the court. A man who is a scofflaw. Who is a fugitive, who ran away from a criminal justice process cannot be found guilty in absential.”

Mr. Ogunye further accused the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice for having triggered the Maina’s issue by writing a memo to the Federal Civil Service Commission urging Maina’s reinstatement, since an earlier court warrant had been vacated, hence a Presidential aide defending him.

He explained, “The Senate asked him to come, he refused to come. He went to court via a fundamental rights enforcement procedure application to injunct the Senate. Now by 2015, he had been charged to court by the EFCC and he was supposed to be in court.

“He was declared wanted because there was an order for his arrest, a warrant of arrest. What has happened is that by deception, that order (warrant) for his arrest was vacated by a Magistrate court and the Attorney-General who triggered this whole thing.

“And that is why Chief Obono-Obla was speaking tongue in cheek because it was his principal, the person he is working with that triggered off the whole thing. So, the AG then wrote a memo to the Federal Civil Service Commission stating that since that warrant had been vacated, he should be reinstated, whereas his sack in the first instance was predicated on his abscondment.”