Pension Fraud: Court Sentences Maina to 61 Years’ Imprisonment
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Pension Fraud: Court Sentences Maina to 61 Years’ Imprisonment
By Alabidun Shuaib Abdulrahman
Abdulrasheed Maina, the former chairman of the now-defunct Pension Reforms Task Team, has been sentenced to 61 years in prison by Justice Okon Abang of a Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday.
His sentence will run concurrently for eight years.
The court found him guilty of money laundering and enticing Fidelity Bank employees to open bank accounts for him without undertaking due diligence.
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Justice Abang, who delivered the verdict, also found him guilty of exploiting the identities of his family members without their knowledge to mask his genuine identity as a signatory to accounts opened with UBA and Fidelity Bank.
Cash deposits of N300 million, N500 million, and N1.5 billion were alleged to be in these accounts.
The court held that Maina stole monies meant for pensioners as he could not prove where he got same from.
Maina’s salary and emoluments as a civil servant, according to Justice Abang, would not amount to the funds in these accounts.
The court also found that the prosecution (the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC) established sufficient evidence through witnesses called to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Maina was also guilty of money laundering in the amount of N171,099,000.
