Mainagate: How officials defrauded Nigeria of N42bn — AGF

The Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has given more insight into how a pension syndicate defrauded the country of well over N42 billion between 2010 and 2014.


Malami’s revelation was contained in a memo he submitted to the Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating the reinstatement and promotion of the former chairman of Presidential Task Force on Pensions, Abdulrasheed Maina, headed by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Services, Senator Emmanuel Paulker, PDP, Bayelsa Central. Following the memo, many of the officials concerned are now jittery as many of them have started seeking transfer out of the department.

According to Malami in the memo, the office of Head of Service that was used to facilitate the fraud, had 66 separate accounts for pensioners. According to him, in 2014, the office usually presented 258, 000 pensioners for payment monthly, whereas the actual figure of pensioners stood at 141, 762, noting that in the process, the syndicate defrauded the government of billions of naira amounting to over N42 billion. Malami noted that as a result of this discovery, many of the officials who were around during the alleged scam, were lobbying to be transferred to other establishments to be away from the radar of investigation, even as he revealed that the pension syndicate had serious links with the villa to the point of plotting to assassinate Maina.