As the war against pension scam gathers momentum, LEADERSHIP SUNDAY can authoritatively report that the chairman of the Pension Reform Task force, Abdulrasheed Maina, was offered a princely sum of N1.4 billion as bribe to halt his reforms.
Maina, who is reported to have received series of threats to his life by the well-entrenched pension cabal, is said to not only have rejected the graft sum but turned in those responsible to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
When contacted on the development, the chairman of the Pension Task force, while he was not categorical on the attempted bribe, however, acknowledged that nothing was impossible with those that had stolen massively from pensioners.
“I don’t want to comment on that issue. But what I can tell you is that we are fighting against very powerful interests that have amassed billions from stealing pension funds and we will not be deterred by their threats and attempts to corrupt us”.
However, a top official of the task force who did not want to be named told our correspondent that if the fraudsters of the pension scheme comprising of a former Head of Service, a serving permanent secretary and some directors had succeeded in bribing Maina and other officials, the reform of the pension sector would have reached a dead end.
It is estimated that the task force has so far recovered over N159 billion from the alleged pension crooks both in terms of cash and property across the country and beyond.
Giving an insight into how the graft team operates, the source confided that the scammers pick their accomplices who usually are retirees randomly; convince them of making easy extra money by jacking up their pension, sometimes by as much as 300 per cent and they get 10 per cent of the jacked sum for their cooperation.
“They sometimes use pensioned retirees or enrol area boys as pensioners fully documented. For instance, if your pension is N50,000 monthly, they will jack it up to N1.5million and promise you 10 per cent.
At the end of the month, they accompany their new found accomplice to withdraw the money over the counter, give the accomplice his/her share and take the rest. And they do this with over 13,000 accounts”, the source disclosed.
According to him, the alleged pension scammers steal approximately N3.5 billion monthly.