By Baba Yusuf Abuja
One of the aides to Abdulrasheed Maina, Chairman of the Presidential TaskForce on Pension Reform, Olajide Fashikun, has alleged that there were so many behind-the-scene issues involved in the current media trial of his boss.
He further alleged that there were distortion of facts and sometimes outright blackmail, all in an attempt to discredit Maina.
He also alleged that “Nigerians will not forget that Sani Shuaibu Tiedi, former director of pension in the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, who has been on prosecution for almost seven years now along with 31 others that Senator Alloysius Etuk, the chairman of the panel that was to try Maina and other members of the Senate committee allegedly collected a bribe of N3 billion from him.
” “In a petition one of Teidi’s aides made to the EFCC and ICPC, Mr. Tiedi had said he paid the money to Senator Etuk in foreign currency and that the bribe was meant to prevent their prosecution,” he said. He told investigators that he equally bribed Farida Waziri, former Chairman of the EFCC. Why have the two anti-graft agencies not investigated this matter?
Why are they after the man who caught the ‘thieves’ and are not after the ‘thieves’?
He also said: “The reasons are simple. Maina’s PRTT was a clog in the wheel of so many who were looting the pensioner’s funds. Maina’s PRTT was brought in to sanitise a very corrupt pension system. It was the success of his pension system in the Ministry of Interior that brought him to the PRTT.
Many Nigerians will not forget that for years, aged pensioners suff ered and even died roaming the streets of Abuja while waiting for their pensions. “Emerging evidence has shown that Maina is just a victim of the popular saying, that when you fight corruption, corruption will fight back. In a hurry to crucify Maina, the Senate committee did what could best be described as a hatchet job.
They told the nation he stole N195billion. On 13th April 2016, former Kano Governor, Kabiru Gaya, told Th e Sun newspaper in an interview that that money was never missing. So, why is he being tried for the money that is now confi rmed is not missing?
“For those who understand the structure of the task force, they will let you know that Maina like none of them therein never had access to the pension fund and could never have taken one Naira lest over N2 billion. “Former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, during a Senate meeting, said that Maina had no contact with funds and revealed how she froze the account where the monies recovered by Maina’s committee were kept and how she transferred the funds to the CBN.”
