When President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the immediate dismissal of Abdulrasheed Maina, former Chairman of the Pension Reforms Task Team (PRTT), on October 23, it was announced with a curt statement reflecting presidential surprise.

“President Buhari has directed the immediate disengagement of Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina from the Federal Civil Service. The disengagement is with immediate effect,” read the statement, signed by Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.

It read further: “PMB has also asked the Head of Service to submit a full report of the circumstances of Mr Maina’s recall and posting to the Interior Ministry.

“The report is to be submitted to the office of the Chief of Staff to the President before the close of work today, Monday, Oct 23, 2017.”

But events that followed Maina’s dismissal suggest that the President may have been in contact with the fugitive, either directly or through some of his officials, and that he was aware of Maina’s recall and reinstatement into the civil service.

BACKGROUND

Maina was an Assistant Director in the Pension Department of the Ministry of Interior before his invitation by Steve Oronsaye, in 2010, to head the newly formed PRTT.

However, after recovering billions in cash and assets from alleged pension thieves, Maina was alleged to have re-looted the recovered funds, in collaboration with Oronsaye and one Osarenkhoe Afe, who served as a consultant to the PRTT.

While Oronsaye and Afe have both pleaded not guilty to the charges, Maina has remained at large, refusing to honour several summons from the EFCC and a Senate committee that was set up to investigate the matter.

He was declared wanted by both the EFCC and the Nigerian Police in 2015, and it is believed that he fled to Dubai from where he continued to keep tabs with happenings back home.

CLANDESTINE RECALL

Eventually, Maina was secretly reinstated into the civil service in October, and the Federal Government would have gotten away with had Premium Times not broken the story.

The controversial reinstatement immediately triggered intense public criticism, prompting Buhari, who was in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly at the time, to immediate mandate Maina’s disengagement.

THE INTRIGUES

Hardly had the presidential order been issued than Maina’s family addressed a press Conference in Kaduna, where they accused the government of hypocrisy.

Aliyu Maina, spokesman of the Maina family, told pressmen that it was the Buhari government that actually invited Maina to come home and join the ongoing anti-corruption campaign.

“Abdulrasheed was in fact invited by this administration and he was promised security to come and clean up the mess and generate more revenue to government by blocking leakages,” Aliyu said.

“He succumbed to the present administration and came back to Nigeria. He has been working with the DSS for quite some time and he was given necessary security.

“So, one wonders why all the agencies and various individuals responsible for his return are now denying.”

As if that was not puzzling enough, Ngozika Ihuoma, a former member of the House of Representative and Executive Director of Legislative Watch, appeared on AIT’s Focus Nigeria on November 6, where he said among other things that Ibrahim Magu, Acting Chairman of the EFCC, usually visited Maina in Dubai.

Ihuoma said: “The EFCC, in trying to be funny, sent invitation to him (Maina) through somebody who used to be his staff. This is what they are parading that they invited him,” Ihuoma said.

“Is this the proper way of inviting somebody? Ann (the person the letter was given to) saw Maina last in 2012, then in 2015 you gave Ann a letter under duress to go and give to Maina.

“Meanwhile, the EFCC Chairman from Larmode to Magu visits Maina in Dubai when he was in Dubai. Let the President bring back Maina. He is not on the run.”

OYO-ITA’S TESTIMONY

Again, on October 31, the memo written by Winifred Oyo-Ita, Head of Service of the Federation, in response to Buhari’s directive for her explanations, was leaked to the press.

In that memo, which was submitted to Abba Kyari, Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Oyo-Ita was quoted as saying that she had intimated Buhari on the plot by some top government officials to have Maina recalled.

She noted that she warned the President on the “damaging impact” such a move would have on the anti-corruption campaign.

“Please, note that the OHCSF was never in agreement with the reinstatement and consequently never conveyed the approval of the FCSC to Mr. A. A. Maina, nor approved his posting to the Ministry of Interior or any other MDA,” Punch quoted Oyo-Ita as writing in the memo,” Oyo-Ita stated.

“Rather, I sought audience with His Excellency, Mr. President, on Wednesday, 11th October, 2017 after the FEC meeting where I briefed His Excellency verbally on the wide-ranging implications of the reinstatement of Mr. A. A. Maina, especially the damaging impact on the anti-corruption stance of this administration.

“The move to recall Mr. A. A. Maina was at the instance of a series of letters from the Attorney General of the Federation…”

MAINA’S TESTIMONY

Perhaps the clearest evidence that Buhari may have been in touch with Maina came on Monday night, when Channels TV aired an exclusive video of Maina begging the President to give him a chance to prove his innocence.

Maina asked Buhari to give him only nine months, within which he would help government recoup N3 trillion.

“Mr President, I will give you information and documents that will fetch you over N3 trillion now in Nigeria, give me nine months,” he said in the video.

“Within the first three months, I will show you N1 trillion just like I showed you N1 trillion in this 2017.”

“…. Just like I showed you N1 trillion in 2017”? When in 2017 did this happen? Where did this happen? Has Buhari been in contact with Maina all along, as Maina has implicitly claimed? If that is true, then the President cannot entirely wash his hands off the mess of Maina’s recall.