Abdulrasheed Maina, the former chairman of the now-defunct Pension Reform Task Team, is wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for allegedly receiving stolen property. The commission is requesting information from the public regarding his whereabouts.
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The anti-graft agency made the announcement in a statement that was shared on its official social media account on Wednesday. The EFCC identified Maina as a native of Biu, Borno State, and named a number of its zonal offices in the notice, along with a phone number and email address where the public may send any information regarding his whereabouts.
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The commission urged anyone with useful information regarding Maina’s whereabouts to reach out through its offices in Ibadan, Uyo, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Benin, Makurdi, Kaduna, Ilorin, Enugu, Kano, Lagos, Gombe, Port Harcourt, or Abuja, or alternatively to approach the nearest police station or other security agency. The specific allegation cited in this latest notice relates to receiving stolen property, though the statement did not provide further detail on the circumstances behind the allegation.
This is not the first time the commission has declared Maina wanted. In 2015, the EFCC pursued him over his alleged role in a pension biometric contracts case that also implicated former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye, and others, with Maina facing a 24-count charge before the Federal High Court in Abuja bordering on procurement fraud and obtaining by false pretence. He was again prosecuted by the commission in 2019 over separate allegations of pension fraud and money laundering, making this latest notice part of a recurring pattern of legal pursuit stretching back over a decade.
At this stage, the EFCC’s statement establishes only that Maina has been declared wanted and that the public is being asked to assist in locating him — it does not detail the specific evidence behind the stolen property allegation, nor confirm his current location or any prior court appearance connected to this particular case. Given his long history of EFCC entanglements, questions remain over whether this notice will lead to a fresh prosecution or whether, as with some past declarations, developments will take time to materialise.
Source: Vanguard News.
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