“EFCC did not receive a single property from Maina,” says Magu

The Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, has said that the Pension Reform Task Force headed by Abdulrasheed Maina never handed any asset to the EFCC.

He said this on Thursday at the hearing organised by the ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives investigating the controversial reinstatement of Mr. Maina into the federal civil service.

Mr. Magu, while listing out properties belonging to Mr. Maina, claimed that the EFCC’s knowledge of the said properties was obtained by the commission, stressing that Mr. Maina has not returned any asset.

He further challenged Mr. Maina to provide evidence of submission of asset if he continues to claim to have returned any.

He challenged anyone with a contradictory evidence to tender it publicly.

“If Maina or any government official witnessed the sharing of any recovered pension assets by any official of the EFCC, they should be willing to name the official, the assets involved; when and where the sharing took place.

“For the avoidance of doubt, there are no 222 properties anywhere that were shared by anybody. The EFCC did not receive a single property from Abdulrasheed Maina,” Mr. Magu said.

He added that all the pension fraud asset that are in the recovered assets inventory of the commission, ”were products of independent investigation by the EFCC.”

The senate committee at a plenary last Thursday had said that 222 properties recovered by Mr. Maina had been allegedly shared by some “interest groups” under the watch of the EFCC.

A senator, Emmanuel Paulker, told the Senate that the Presidential Task Team on Pension Reforms (PTTPR) headed by Mr. Maina had recovered the houses from pension suspects in Abuja and other major cities across the country.

At the hearing, the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, has also said Mr. Maina, who is currently on the run, was reinstated into the civil service without a directive from her office.

The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami; Mr. Magu; Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris; Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Services, Mohammed Babangede; and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Abubakar Magaji, were some of those quizzed at the resumption of the hearing chaired by Aliyu Madaki.