…Suspect may be arraigned this week

Soni Daniel – Abuja

Forty-eight hours after he was arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services in a hotel, former controversial chairman of the disbanded Presidential Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, is to be formally handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Maina

A top source in EFCC confirmed to Vanguard last night that the commission had been notified by DSS of Maina’s arrest but was yet to be transferred to the anti-graft agency.

“It is true that the DSS arrested Maina in a hotel while trying to escape in a bullet-proof vehicle but we are yet to receive him,” the source, who did not want to be named because he has not been authorized to speak on the matter, told our correspondent last night.

It was however gathered that the EFCC would not hesitate to charge Maina to court given his penchant to slip away from security agents and resort to ‘frivolous court challenges’ in order to delay justice.

Before escaping from the country under the regime of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Maina had spurned police and National Assembly invitations and eventually sued both institutions for daring to invite him for questioning.

Again, when the EFCC moved to arraign him and he evaded several invitations, he was later ‘declared wanted’ but he got a court to squash the declaration before disappearing to the Middle East.

• ⤕Maina opened 3 accounts where ‘unspecified amounts’ were lodged – Witnesses
• ⤕Just in: Court halts EFCC from declaring Maina, accused of stealing over $5.6m ‘wanted’

In a bid to frustrate his arraignment by the EFCC, Main in suit no: FHC/ABJ/CS/957/2918, asked the court to decide whether the agency can lawfully exercise powers of declaring him wanted, either on its official website or any other media platform or “harass him.”

After listening to him, Justice Folasade Giwa Ogunbanjo of the Federal High Court restrained the EFCC from declaring Maina wanted and also gave an order of perpetual injunction restraining it and its affiliates from further declaring Maina wanted in relation to the issue of the pension scam.

But the anti-graft agency has vowed that the said the judgment must not be allowed to stand and filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal to set it aside.

Maina may be arraigned any time this week by the EFCC once he is handed over by the DSS.

Vanguard News Nigeria.