Former Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, who has been wanted by security operatives, has been arrested in Abuja.
Maina was arrested by officials of the Department of State Services (DSS) after he had found his way into the country secretly.
“Following inter-agency collaboration, intelligence report indicated that Maina had sneaked into the country from Dubai,” the DSS had said.
“He was trailed to an Abuja hotel where he was arrested after operatives outwitted those who tried to ferry him away in a bullet-proof vehicle.
“He is currently being quizzed. He is likely to be handed over to the EFCC for trial. He has a pending case since 2015.”
Maina was sacked in 2013 after absconding from duty, after a recommendation by the office of the Head of Service.
He was accused of involvement in fraud of N100billion. The Senate Committee on Public Service Establishment had an investigation of the alleged fraud, before a warrant of arrest was issued against him.
The Police, in its reaction subsequently declared him wanted as he went into hiding.
Maina was on July 21, 2015 charged alongside Oronsaye, Osarenkhoe Afe and Fredrick Hamilton Global Services Limited before a Federal High Court on a 24-count charge bordering on procurement fraud and obtaining by false pretense.
He came back to Nigeria in 2017 and was secretly reinstated into the Ministry of Interior, before President Muhammadu Buhari ordered for his fresh dismissal and investigation into his case.
The EFCC in 2017, declared Maina wanted, following his refusal to honour the commission’s invitations.
But in his bid to evade the long arm of the law, Maina, on September 5, 2018, in a suit no: FHC/ABJ/CS/957/2918, asked the court to decide whether the Commission can lawfully exercise powers of declaring him wanted, either on its official website or any other media platform, or “harass him.”
Justice Folasade Giwa Ogunbanjo of the Federal High Court restrained the anti- graft commission from declaring Maina wanted.
She also gave an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the EFCC and its affiliates or related bodies from further declaring Maina wanted in relation to the issue of the pension scam.
The EFCC said the judgment must not be allowed to stand and filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal.