The former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reform, Abdulrasheed Maina, said that his reinstatement was in respect of a court order to that effect.
The process, he said, started with a meeting with the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.
Maina spoke in a video by Channels Television on Monday, on the ongoing controversy over his reinstatement and sack.
It would be recalled that Maina’s recall became a source of controversy as it was revealed that he had earlier been declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over alleged financial malpractices.
With criticism over his reinstatement, the president later ordered his sack and queried the top government officials said to be involved in the exercise.
Chief among them is the Attorney General of the Federation and Minsiter of Justice, Abubakar Malami who was said to have ordered his return to office.
In the video, he said he was visited by Malami outside the country where he had escaped to, following threat to his life.
Maina stated that his reinstatement was in respect of a court order to that effect and not a directive from Malami as generally believed.
He said after the meeting with him, he gave them a clue as to how some money could be recovered by the government.
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His words: “As soon as this present government decided to sit with me, and after sitting with me, I told them I will not leave you to go back to Nigeria without something in your pocket. I’m going to give you something in your pocket and the Minister laughed. The Minister of Justice said what are you going to give us as gift? I gave him a document, I say go here, here, here, there’s N1.3 trillion they are going to steal it because they’ve been stealing every year. He was shocked, he said not it was not possible. I said sir, with all due respect, could you please try it, this is a gift I’m giving you. I haven’t gotten to Nigeria, I’m just giving you a gift. I say try it for you to understand where I’m coming from.
“I’m not a saint but I try as much as I can to help the system. The minister thought that won’t be possible, when he got back, he realised I gave him a correct information. Now, after giving him this information, he asked me, when are you coming back, I said I will soon be back. I said I have a court order. So, I asked my lawyer to write a petition. He now wrote a petition to government and the minister set up a committee to look at the petition. They looked at the petition and recommended that this is a court order that there’s no question of going back on it, nobody has appealed it since 2013 so government must obey it.
“So, he sent a letter to the Federal Civil Service Commission to say this is the petition I got in my office, I’m attaching the court order which you must respect. I’m hearing people are saying he’s directing people to reinstate me. No, he said you must respect the court order, this is the court order because he is the chief officer of the country. Now, the document was taken to the Federal Civil Service Commission. I went to the Federal Civil Service Commission, they told me they have just received the documents, they are going to see me later and we have a meeting. After that meeting, they wrote office of the head of service. They say we want you to sit down with your Senior Staff Committee and after that you send it to the Ministry of Interior; that was used at that time because they were coerced which I later found out. The Senior Staff Committee was coerced by the then Head of Service, Mr. Isa Bello Sanni, to make sure they send me out and packing because I had stopped the inflow of 5.2 billion monthly to the office of the Head of Service.”
