Human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to take action immediately against government officials who allegedly schemed to bring former Chairman of the defunct Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina, to the country and got him reinstated into the public service with promotion.
Maina was sacked in 2013 after he was declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over corruption allegations involving N2bn pension fund.
Falana said it Is necessary for the president to bring the culprits to book fast so as to save the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption policy, whose credibility he alleged has been crumbled by the Federal Government’s handling of the scandal so far.
Falana said in a statement, titled ‘President Buhari should act with dispatch on Mainagate’, on Sunday, that the officials who aided Maina back to the country and paid the fugitive his arrears of salaries and allowances said to be totaling N22m “deliberately set out to subvert the anti-corruption policy of the Buhari administration”.
He observed that all officials culpable in the scandal “conspired to expose the administration and the nation to such avoidable shame” and sanctions imposed by the President on them would make or break the administration’s fight against corruption and impunity.
He stated,“Although the Federal Government has promised not to sweep the Mainagate under the carpet, the handling of the monumental scandal so far eroded the credibility of the anti-corruption crusade of the Buhari administration.
"Therefore, the sanctions which the Federal Government will mete out to all the officials who conspired to expose the administration and the nation to such avoidable shame will make or mar (sic) the fight against corruption and impunity which is the cornerstone of the domestic and foreign policy thrust of the administration. "Time is certainly not on the side of President Buhari!”