Opinion
Abdulrasheed Maina’s reinstatement, sign of a dysfunctional state
Abdulrasheed Maina
The former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Mallam Abdulrasheed Maina, was deployed by the Goodluck Jonathan government to sanitise the deeply corrupt practices at the pension office in the Office of the Head of Service.
The funds in the pension account are usually colossal because civil servants make lifelong contributions to the scheme, and can only draw therefrom at retirement, which may be as far away as 35 years after engagement. The pension funds in most countries are used to fund long-term projects, since the call on it would not be immediate.
In Nigeria, the funds, which are banked, had given room for indiscriminate stealing/ looting either directly or by drawing from interests accrued in fixed accounts in banks.
The diversion of the funds from all angles had eventually left the coffers empty, and when it was time to pay pensioners when due, the funds were no longer available, hence the miserable after-service life of Nigerian pensioners.
When Maina was deployed to the office, he indeed tried to block some of the sleaze. He also helped himself in a big way! The N100bn (about $400m) alleged to have been stolen by a syndicate in which he was a member, may just be a tip of the iceberg in this scandal.
The malpractices may still be going on, but at a limited level because of the creation of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, and the National Pension Commission with the latter now supervising the affairs of pensioners, through banks, insurance companies and pension managers. The former is saddled with the pension of paramilitary agencies such as the police, immigration and customs services with stringent controls.
Be that as it may, what is curious is why Maina came back after escaping from justice for over a year, knowing full well that he might be arrested. Did he get a green light to come back with added promise of reinstatement into the civil service? The fact that he was able to find his way back through dubious and official means is significant and a smear on the reputation of the government.
The letter from the Senior Staff Management Committee of the Ministry of Interior recommending his reinstatement to the Federal Civil Service Commission must have been influenced, which in turn confused the FCSC into directing the Head of Service to reinstate Maina.
Nevertheless, the FCSC should have exercised its discretion by pointing out the implications and the possible public outrage which would follow, and which did follow the botched reinstatement.
The Head of Service ought to have engaged the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Interior to block the reinstatement. But going by the information available, if indeed President Muhammadu Buhari was informed after one of the Federal Executive Council meetings, and no action was taken thereafter, then, the technocrats down the chain of command cannot be held responsible for the eventual outcome.
What ought to be ascertained however is, if indeed Buhari was aware of the entire episode, which normally should be a routine civil service matter.
This is where the issue of the cabal comes in, the powerful individuals who have constituted a parallel government within the government, and which Hajia Aisha Buhari last year pointed out as the group calling the shots in Aso Rock.
This cabal, if indeed it has the interest of this country at heart, and more importantly cares about leaving a legacy which any administration would wish to bequeath to a nation, it ought to be more circumspect in the way it goes about exercising its influence.
Why is the cabal not influencing the construction of world-class hospitals, mass housing, mass education projects which would be a lasting legacy for which the administration would be remembered for? What they have succeeded in doing so far, however, amounts to holding the government to ransom and placing the country in a dysfunctional state where impunity is now the order of the day.– Ambassador Rasheed Akinkuolie was the Director of Trade and Investment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abuja
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