By Henry Umoru

ABUJA—The Senate has complained against the Inspector- General of Police, IGP, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar, for allegedly failing to arrest the Chairman of the Presidential Pension Task Force Team, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, warning that it would summon Abubakar to appear before it over the issue when the National Assembly resumes next week.

The Senate said it was a slap on the face of  Senate President, David Mark, for Abubakar not to carry out his order to arrest Maina, whose  warrant of arrest was signed by Mark.

MD Abubakar, Police IG

Speaking with reporters in Abuja yesterday, Chairman, Joint Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service and State and Local Government Administration that is probing the management of the pension fund, Senator Aloysius Etok, said: “The Senate President, who is the number three citizen in this country, signed a warrant of arrest and the IGP ignored the order.

“This is very unfortunate, and the Senate is left with no option than to invite the IGP to come and explain why he could not arrest Maina. We want to know if Maina is above the law of the land. The IGP must tell us his own fears and whether it is beyond his power to arrest Maina. We will seek to know all these from the IGP.

“In our committee’s report that was submitted to the Senate in June last year, which was adopted by the entire Senate, we said the continued existence of Maina’s task force was illegal and should be discontinued immediately because nowhere does any task force exist beyond six months. This was affirmed by the former Head of Service who appointed Maina, Chief Steve Orosanye. The former Head of Service, Professor Oladapo Afolabi, also said this, likewise the incumbent Head of Service, Mr. Bello Sali, as well as the Minister of Finance.

“We also said that Maina was a bad example in the public service and should be relieved of his appointment and prosecuted. He claimed that he had been spending N500 million monthly to pay police pension, and on our own, we discovered that he was spending between N600 million and N1 billion monthly to pay. Therefore, the difference between N500 million and N1 billion is the margin of fraud that he must return to government’s treasury. We calculated the money and it was over N9 billion. We’ve also stated in our report that we found Maina to have ridiculed the system by awarding contracts through splitting to the tune of N1.8 billion without any authorised approval.”