OPINION: Still on Mainagate

By Musa Aliyu

The Abdurrasheed Maina reinstatement scandal is such a gargantuan monster that cannot be easily killed or wished away. But it has to be tackled, no matter what.

In my last week’s piece l argued that the audacity of the Maina family, via one Aliyu Maina who claims he is their spokesperson, was unbelievable. The family said the embattled former head of the Presidential Pension Reform Task Team was recalled from exile by the President Muhammadu Buhari regime. I expected the government to respond unequivocally, soon afterwards. But the silence and equivocation are unmistakable.

While the waiting game went on another bombshell came from a person of no less standing than the Head of Service of the Federation Winifred Oyo-Ita. In a leaked memo to the chief of staff to the president, Abba Kyari, she emphatically claimed President Buhari was aware Maina had been reabsorbed and, perhaps, did not disapprove it even after she had warned him about the damaging implications.

By this claim the Head of Service has indicted the president, directly, and has corroborated the Maina family statement. And this, therefore, leads to crucial questions that have, so far, defied answers.

Was the president actually aware of this, as the HOS insists? If not who was behind Abdurrasheed Maina’s secret return and reinstatement, under the nose of a regime that came topoweron anti-corruption credentials, despite the enormity of the corruption charges against him?

Trending in the media and social media is a certain court order reinstating Maina, which the Minister of Justice AbubakarMalami said was the basis on which he endorsed the reinstatement. There’s also Interior Minister Abdulrahman Dambazau’s defence for the role he played in the matter. And from their arguments the two top officials fingered in the scandal absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. So who is to blame?

The said court order, according to reports, was obtained in an Abuja Court in 2013. But the former Justice Minister Mohammed Adoke did not reinstate Mainaon its strength. It was only in June 2017, following the directive it received from the current Justice Minister, that the Federal Civil Service Commission acted on the order, leading to Maina’s recall and subsequent promotion.

But there are suggestions that the court merely faulted the process in which an arrest warrant was issued on Maina and, as such, quashed it. But it did not order his reinstatement.

Given this backdrop, Justice Minister Malami’s claim that public interest was behind his decision to obey a court order obtained four years earlier and under an entirely different government and political party flies in the face of reason.

Since all that transpired during the process was predicated on the minister’s decision, via his letter to FCSC, it is not unreasonable to apportion him a generous chunk of the blame. This does not, however, completely absolve others of complicity.

Despite the manner it was made available to the public it is worth pondering the HOS leaked memo. While Mrs Oyo-Ita might have been motivated by public interest to refuse to be part of the fraud and subsequently inform the president, as she claims, but leaking the memo to the media contradicts the oath of secrecy that guides the actions of employees, including civil servants.

Nonetheless, there’s is no justification for reinstating Maina and the secrecy in which it was shrouded. The silence of the presidency further compounds the problem. The president needs to act fast to restore hope and save his integrity. This scandal just can’t be wished away.

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