Former President Goodluck Jonathan has raise objection to attempt by the Presidency to link him with the surreptitious return and reinstatement of former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pensions Reforms, Abdulkareem Maina.
Jonathan said the attempt demonstrates how “uncoordinated and rudderless” the Buhari administration has become.
“Are they saying it is President Jonathan that flew him back into Nigeria and promoted him in two levels ahead of where he was as at 2013 when he fled the from civil service?” Jonathan’s spokesperson, Ikechukwu Eze, reportedly asked on Wednesday night.
“They should stop insulting Nigerians or seeing them as fools,” Eze said.
Buhari’s government has come under public criticism following Maina’s return to the public service.
Maina, then assistant director, was declared wanted by the EFCC on allegations of cornering billions of naira in public funds for his own use when he headed the pensions reform task force.
The pension funds scandal broke out during Jonathan’s administration (2010-2015), and the government took disciplinary steps against Maina by dismissing him from service.
But the presidency, in a statement by Garba Shehu on Wednesday night, alleged that top officials of the Jonathan administration benefitted from Maina’s loot.
“Top officials in the PDP government, from sectoral heads to those charged with responsibility for law and order received some of these billions of naira from Maina,” the presidential spokesperson said.
“We have all the transaction records and these are matters that the EFCC has been pursuing to ensure that they all have their day in court.”
Shehu also suggested that some influential officials loyal to the previous government may have been the invisible hands in the latest scandal that saw the return of Maina to the public service, despite being on the EFCC’s wanted list.
He, however, assured Nigerians that President Buhari was determined to get to the bottom of the matter of the impunity that led to Maina’s reinstatement.
“Everything will be uncovered in due course,” he said. “This just goes to show us the scale of corruption that this government is fighting. And, as we can all see, corruption keeps fighting back viciously.”
Jonathan’s camp responded, challenging Buhari’s administration officials to waste little time in bringing out any evidence of connivance between Jonathan and Maina if they have it.
“There’s no need to warn that they will bring evidence out or that everything will be revealed on a later date,” Eze said. “They should present the evidence to Nigerians now.”
Eze said Maina’s family had already disclosed how the embattled former civil servant returned to the country and secured a new position in civil service even while he was being sought by the EFCC.
“The Maina family spoke about how he returned to the country and they made it very clear that Buhari officials were the ones that orchestrated his return,” Mr. Eze said.
Already, there are speculations of the involvement of the offices of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Federal Civil Service and the Ministry of Interior as playing different roles in the reinstatement of Maina into the civil service.