Former Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, has petitioned the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, demanding a review of the charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
In a letter by his lawyer, Edwin Inegedu, dated August 31, 2020, Maina wants the AGF to, in the interest of justice, bring his trial to a halt.
Maina also urged Malami to review the files involving him to ensure that his prosecution “is not malicious, mala fide and borne out of narrow interests to prevent accountability for the assets kept in the EFCC’s custody.
“It is our further brief that our client’s persecution by the EFCC came to a head under the leadership of Mr Ibrahim Magu.
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“This was principally due to our client‘s demand that the EFCC should account for the sums and properties recovered by the PRTT, and kept in the EFCC’s custody,” he said.
Maina claimed that the EFCC maintained a campaign of calumny against him to obfuscate the issues and divert attention from its inability to account for the properties warehoused with it.
“It is also pertinent to add that our client has despite the hordes of persecution and attacks on his person, aided the Federal Government in a further recovery of N1.3 trillion recently.
“It is thus imperative to state that our client has at all times performed in the best interest of the nation despite that his good intentions has become a subject of witch-hunt by the EFCC in recent times.
“The charges preferred against our client is a clear testimony of the abuse of prosecutorial powers and arbitrariness.
“It is an attempt at ensuring that our client remains perpetually damaged in his reputation and to render him incapable of voicing out the full extent of the good work his team carried out in the recovery of monies and properties for the benefit of the government at large” Maina said.
He added that in the course of his assignment, the sum of N1.63 trillion and a total of 237 properties were recovered by the team comprising of representatives of the EFCC, DSS, ONSA, PoIice etc.
“All of the sums and the properties recovered were kept in the custody of the EFCC,” he said.
