The family of Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina had spiritedly risen in his defense. This inadvertently makes what ordinarily should be a public affair almost personalized. But let’s hold our breadth and ask; what manners did the family inculcate in their ward in the first instance? The legendary Frank Olizie, NTA ace pioneer presenter of the Sunday news extra; Newsline often started in the 80s with this opening question; Do you know where your children are? Do Maina family members know where their Maina is?.
At the height of his notoriety in 2013 as the chairman of the presidential Pension Task Force, Abdulrasheed Maina audaciously turned upside the time tested popular received wisdom according to which; the whole world could not be wrong at once. For six months from his hideouts, Maina declared a one man-war of attrition against the Senate Committee on Establishment & Public Service, the Senate Committee State & Local Government Administration, the entire Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Senate President, the Clerk of the Senate, the police, the National Union of Pensioners, (NUP) and the then Head of Service of the Federation (almost in-that-order!). Everybody in pension industry was wrong minus him.
Betraying no sobriety even in the face of open criminal accusations of pension scam, he provoked unprecedented star-words of recriminations and damnations. I particularly recall the notable damning words of the 7th Senate President, David Mark. Witness him “….there are a lot of characters in this country who are just pathological liars and professional blackmailers. Maina is just an individual who perhaps says much than he can manage, and he has crucified himself. The executive now has to choose between Maina and the Senate. That is the bottom line…. Maina’s sins are too many to enumerate. When God decided to give people manner, Maina just decided to be absent.”
Four years after, Maina is back on the block with a new bad manner; got dubiously reinstated and even sought promotion amidst pension scam allegations. Nothing has put the Buhari administration on the defensive! Both the PDP and APC are outdoing each other to deny the ownership of Maina. The two political parties miss the point. “Pathological liars” and “professional blackmailers” only germinate in a fertile soil such as Nigeria’s where crisis of governance is the rule, where nobody actually governs nor accepts responsibility nor face any consequences.
The emergence and resurrection of Maina underscored the crisis of governance of the Federal Republic under both President Goodluck Jonathan and President Buhari. There is only one regulatory pension commission in the country and that is National Pension Commission, PenCom established by an Act of parliament in 2004. Section 30 of the Act empowers Pension Transition Transition Arrangement Directorate, (PTAD), to manage all complaints arising from the old unsustainable defined benefits (DB) in the ever corrupt Police, immigration, civil service and customs pension boards. It was therefore clearly illegal for President Goodluck Jonathan to indulge Abdulrasheed Maina with a parallel presidential Pension Task Force on pension. Clearly unacceptable was for Jonathan to turn an illegal short term presidential task force to a standing pension fund raid task force under a rogue civil servant.
The President has the responsibility to safeguard the nation’s assets as well as pay the huge pension liabilities of millions of pensioners in the public sector through the legally tested pension market institutions such as PENCOM and PITAD. Given the crisis of compensation of pensioners, any distortion of pension market must be made an impeachable offense on the part of elected officials and punishable by appointed officials.
The Maina saga is an acid test for Buhari’s sense of commitment to probity and accountability from all his appointees mentioned in this singular mess. The presidency must not provide sanctuary for some individuals accused of criminally diverting pension funds and undermining the pension market.
Beyond Maina, some public officials including some ministers often eye the trillion Naira pension assets commendably managed by PENCOM as pools of fund for so-called infrastructural development in clear violation of pension reform Act of 2004 and investment rules guiding pension fund in the country. Pension funds assets (contributed by close to 8 million workers) are contributory funds by workers for pension after work.
Nigerian workers’ investment out of the relatively low earnings is not to fund the so-called infrastructural development. On the contrary, workers’ voluntarily contribute to pension fund every month against the raining days, for life after work up to retirement age through their respective Retirement Saving Accounts (RSAs). Nigerian workers have witnessed all forms of wage theft either by short changed payments, delayed payments, diverted pay and bare faced pay official robbery.
Any additional pension theft through dubious pensions “for infrastructural developments schemes” will be one pension/wage theft unacceptable and clearly provocative. Contributory Pension scheme is workers’ capital, a legitimate hard earned savings of workers. The challenge lies in how to make the principle of contributory pension work in Nigeria and not undermine it through illegal raid on the fund and sheer diversion to other purposes by pension funds scavengers. It is a deferred payment, which both the workers and employers are compelled to set aside so that workers at old age will not be living on some degrading charity as if they are destitute. Let Maina saga be a rude and crude reawakening to protect and deepen the pension assets. PENCOM and PITAD must as a matter of urgency lead this activism in putting an end to crisis of governance with respect to life after work.
Issa Aremu, mni
