OPERATIVES of the Nigeria Police Force have extradited Abdul Rasheed Maina, the former chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) to Nigeria following his arrest in the Niger Republic.
This was disclosed in a tweet on the official Twitter handle of the Nigeria police force on Thursday.
According to the police, Maina was arrested earlier on 30th November 2020 through a collaborative effort of the operatives of the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Police Force, INTERPOL NCB, Abuja and their Nigerien counterpart.
The Police added that a team from INTERPOL Nigeria, led by Garba Umar, the Commissioner of Police INTERPOL extradited Maina following the completion of required documentation for the extradition processes.
Maina’s arrest followed a court order that declared him wanted over failure to appear for his hearing after he was granted bail.
His failure to appear before the court had led to the arrest of Ali Ndume, the senator representing Borno South who stood as surety in Maina’s bail.
Ndume said he has been unable to locate Maina after he stood as surety in his N500 million bail.
Maina is facing prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) over N2 billion money laundering charges and use of fictitious bank accounts while serving as Chairman of the PRTT.
Meanwhile, Joe Gazama, counsel to Maina in the pension fraud suit has filed an application to withdraw his appearance from the ongoing trial.
During the continued trial in absence, Gazama failed to appear before the court.
Also, Adeola Adedipe, counsel representing Maina’s company, Common Input Investment Limited has also withdrawn from the case on the grounds that he is yet to be paid for his services and he is unable to locate him.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via labolade@icirnigeria.org, on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94