Maina opts for no-case submission as EFCC closes case

By Andrew Orolua

The former Chairman, Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina on Wednesday opted for a no-case submission in his ongoing trial before the Federal High Court, Abuja.

Maina gave the hint on Wednesday in court through his lawyer, Anayo Adibe just as the prosecution closed its case after calling nine witnesses.

The defendant is facing a 12 -count charge for allegedly laundering N2billion using multiple fictitious bank accounts before Justice Okon Abang.

When Justice Abang called upon Maina’s lawyer, Adibe to open his defence, the lawyer said his client was desirous of making a no-casesubmission.

In a bench ruling‎, Justice Abang noted that ACJA 2015 did not make provision for the filing of a written address in support of the no-case submission and ordered the parties to argue it orally on December 10 which is the next adjourned date.

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Earlier on Tuesday, the ninth prosecution witness, Rouqayyah Ibrahim, a detective with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in continuation of her testimony before Justice Abang, revealed how Maina, received diverted funds in dollars even while he was a fugitive in Dubai, and operated companies with net worth of N3 billion that engaged in nothing.

“We discovered that some of the funds of which over 90 per cent were cash payment and deposits into the accounts were withdrawn in cash and laundered by the defendant.

Some of these funds were converted to dollars and handed over to the defendant even while he had absconded to Dubai,” the witness said.

The witness also disclosed that the defendant purchased two houses in Abuja, at the cost of $3.4 million, one in Jabi, in the name of Common Input for $2million cash from one Adamu Modibbo (now late) using his account officer, Khalid Biu to pay.

The other, she disclosed was purchased in the name of one Dr. Abdullahi Faisal at the cost of $1.4million also paid in cash in the name of Khalid Biu.

“To be able to understand what really happened, we carried out a discreet investigation on the defendant, the reason for this was to determine if the defendant or his associates companies had concealed incomes that were not accounted for and to determine if the defendant was benefitting or receiving money from that concealed income,” she said.

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Through the investigations, the EFCC she said discovered that Maina’s net worth ran contrary to his declared assets.

She said the EFCC was able to establish that the defendant while being the chairman of Pension Reform Task Team recruited staff of the head of service, whereby he requested them to provide accounts, some personal and some corporate, including persons who were not staff of the head of service, and monies were paid into the accounts for non-existent biometric contracts Some of the accounts received funds for non-existent cumulative allowances and other illegal payments, which the defendant later withdrew from the individuals after converting the sums to foreign currency.

The witness also told the court that there were instances in which Toyin Meseke, the defendant’s account officer at Fidelity Bank, handed over cash in foreign currency to Mairo Bashir, for delivery to Maina, stating that her team discovered that on daily basis, the account officer was receiving huge sums of structured payments into Maina’s accounts running into millions of naira.

The sources of the funds, she stated were unknown to the account officer, but that in some cases the sums were brought personally by the defendant, or Mairo Bashir and other individuals sent by the defendant to deliver the sums in cash.

According to the witness, due diligence was not applied in the opening of the accounts domiciled in Fidelity Bank, UBA and Kangolo Dynamics’ accounts, operated by Maina, which she said were funded with proceeds of crime by the defendant.

The EFCC she further disclosed wrote to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), concerning all the companies linked to Maina to be able to establish if the companies were indeed involved in any business, which yielded negative results.

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“Our findings revealed that these companies were mere briefcase companies and were not involved in any business, let alone a legitimate one, even though the collective turnover in their accounts were almost N3 billion.

Both the CAC and FIRS confirmed. And FIRS said no taxes were paid by these companies,” she said.

The witness further disclosed that Maina’s pay slip as a civil servant, showed that his last payment, which was in February 2013 was N256, 000 and that part of the concealed income analysis carried out by the EFCC showed that at N256, 000 per month, Maina for 35 years as a civil servant would have saved only over N109 million without spending a single kobo.

READ ALSO: Abdulrasheed Maina’s property seized by court

“When we compared that with the results of our concealed income and net worth analysis, we discovered that he had an estimate of at least N3 billion of unknown income from illegitimate sources,” she added.

Thereafter, the defence counsel asked the court for a date to study the case, but the judge dismissed the application and adjourned the matter till Wednesday for continuation of trial.