The trial in absentia of Abdulrasheed Maina, former Chairman, Pension
\nReform Task Force Team, (PRTFT) continued on Wednesday, November 25,
\n2020 before Justice Okong Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja.<\/p>\n
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC is prosecuting Maina,
\nalongside his firm, Common Input Property and Investment Ltd on a
\n12-count charge of operating fictitious bank accounts, corruption, and
\nmoney laundering to the tune of N2 billion.<\/p>\n
At today’s trial, counsel to Common Input Property and Investment Ltd
\n(the second defendant), Adeola Adegbite told the court of his intention
\nto disengage as the company’s counsel, but even though Prosecution
\ncounsel, M.S. Abubakar, acknowledged the receipt of the defence
\ncounsel’s disengagement application, dated November 25, 2020, and made
\nno objection to it, Justice Abang, ruled that Adegbite remained counsel
\nto the second defendant by the court records.<\/p>\n
The testimonies against Maina, continued with that of the ninth
\nprosecution witness, (PW9), Rouqayyah Ibrahim, a principal investigation
\nofficer with the EFCC in Anti Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism
\nFinancing (AML CFT) unit of the Commission and member, Pension Fraud
\nTeam, who stated that he knew Maina and Input Property Investment Ltd,
\nfollowing the invitation of the EFCC in 2010, to join in the pension
\nverification exercise.<\/p>\n
According to him, a payment mandate, bearing the names of several
\nindividuals, totaling N94 million was discovered during the cause of the
\nverification, and that some of the pensioners’ names on the list were
\nfake, for which a report was made to the EFCC by the team, leading
\neventually to the creation of the Pension Fraud Team.<\/p>\n
The Pension Fraud Team, he said, wrote to about 30 banks, requesting the
\nbank accounts of Mr. Steven Oransanya as the Head of Service, in which
\nit turned out that Mr. Oransanya at that time, operated 66 illegal bank
\naccounts, unknown to the Accountant General.<\/p>\n
“Our investigation revealed that there were five modus operandi that the
\nsuspect whom we were investigating at that time was using to steal money
\nfrom the pension account. In total we were able to deduce that N14
\nbillion was stolen from the pension account. In the five modus operandi
\nwas payment to fake pensioners, non-existing contracts, illegal payment
\nto National Union of Pension NUP and illegal payment to another
\nassociation called Association of Retired Federal Civil Servants.<\/p>\n
“We discovered that the suspect will often pay companies for
\nnon-existing biometric contract and once the payment is made, they
\nwithdraw cash and hand it over and likewise payment to the two
\nassociation of NUP and Association of Retired Federal Civil Servants.
\nThey will withdraw the money cash and hand it over to the person who
\nasked them to supply the account.<\/p>\n
“Once we concluded the investigation of those who were indicted, they
\nwere charged to court, and some have been convicted,” the witness said.<\/p>\n
According to him, Abdulrasheed Maina was part of those indicted and
\ncharged before Justice I. Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, but
\nthat he ran away for six years. And was arrested and charged before the
\npresent court.<\/p>\n
The PW9 revealed that Maina as chairman, PRTT was deeply involved in
\nstealing pension funds. One of the things discovered was the payment of
\nN133 million for a non-existing contract to Xanjhi Technology, a company
\nhe appointed to computerize the pension payroll. The money was withdrawn
\nin cash, converted to dollars and handed over to Khalid Biu (PW5), a
\nstaff of Fidelity Bank and handed over to Maina’s secretary, Ann Igwe
\nOluchi, who is now standing trial at FCT High Court Gwagwalada. Xanjhi
\nTechnology and its owner, Ahmed Mazangari are also standing trial for
\ninserting about 15 fake persons into the pension payroll which they were
\nengaged to computerize.<\/p>\n
According to the witness, “We also discovered that Frederick Hamilton
\nLtd, owned by Osa Afe, presently standing trial with Steven Oransanya
\nwho received payment for a non-existing biometric contract handed over
\nabout N250 million to Maina.<\/p>\n
“Our investigation further revealed the existence of six accounts with
\nFidelity Bank, out of the six, five were linked to Abdurrasheed Maina.
\nWe discovered that there was nowhere in the accounts opening packages of
\nthese accounts where the name, birthday or signatures of Abdurrasheed
\nMaina appeared. These account are: Nafisatu Aliyu Yeldu (PW4) Drew
\nConstruction, also an account Kangolo Dynamic Cleaning Services Ltd,
\nCluster Logistics Ltd, Fatima Aliyu, he also had a personal account in
\nhis own name with Fidelity Bank, and also in the name of Dr. Abdullahi
\nFaizal.<\/p>\n
“For example Nafisatu Aliyu Yeldu’s account bears the name of
\nAbdurrasheed Maina’s sister. It also bears her passport, photograph. On
\nthe face of it, it appears the account belonged to her, but when we
\ninvited her for investigation, we discovered she didn’t know anything
\nabout the account, even though it contains her name and children but it
\nwas not her signature. She informed us that she remembers at one point
\nthat Toyin Meseke (PW2), who is a Fidelity Bank staff requested for her
\nPHCN (power utility) bill but she wasn’t sure what he wanted it for and
\nthat was one of the document that was used in opening the account. She
\nalso informed us that when she started receiving alerts, she contacted
\nToyin Meseke and he promised to deal with the issue.”<\/p>\n
The turnover in Yeldu’s account, the witness said, was over N300m.<\/p>\n
The analysis of the identity used in the opening of Abdullahi Faizal’s
\naccount, (one of the many variants of the name Maina used for his son
\nand himself) showed that it was forged, even as Meseke, the account
\nofficer, confirmed that Maina had complete control over the account,
\nthough his name, signature and photograph did not appear anywhere in the
\naccount opening packages. The account had a turnover of about N1.5
\nbillion within nine months from mostly cash deposits from unknown
\nsources.<\/p>\n
“We called for the statement of Drew Construction and of his Fidelity
\nBank, and discovered the same modus by Maina,\u00a0 concealing and stealing
\nthe identity of his family members, registering companies in their
\nnames, opening corporate bank account without their knowledge.<\/p>\n
“In the case of Drew Construction, it was the name of his other sister,
\nFatima Abdullahi Aliyu.\u00a0 When she was confronted, it showed that she had
\nno knowledge of the account, even though it bore her name and other
\nsimilar information that belonged to her. The turnover was about N55
\nmillion all from cash deposits within a few months.<\/p>\n
“We also discovered from Common Input,\u00a0 a company registered by Maina
\nand his wife, using the details of his sister (PW2), taking advantage of
\nhis sister-in-law, Mairo Bashir (PW1), who deliberately allowed Maina to
\nconceal his identity without doing the ‘Know Your Customer’ and allowing
\nhim to operate the accounts as Fatima Abdullahi. When Fatima was
\ninvited, we confronted her that her BVN was linked to Common Input and
\nKongolo Dynamic Cleaning Services Ltd and she confirmed that she did not
\nknow about the existence of the company and that Maina requested her to
\ngive her BVN so that she will be removed as a signatory from the company
\nand she wasn’t aware of being a signatory of any company but innocently
\ngave them the BVN, believing that will make her stop being a signatory
\nof the said company.<\/p>\n
Justice Abang adjourned the matter till December 3, 2020 for the
\ncontinuation of trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The trial in absentia of Abdulrasheed Maina, former Chairman, Pension Reform Task Force Team, (PRTFT) continued on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 before Justice Okong Abang of the Federal High Court,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n