NCoS Explains Maina’s Release After Four Years In Jail

The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has explained why the former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms and convicted money launderer, Abdulrasheed Maina, was released from prison in February 2025, about four years after being sentenced to eight years behind bars.

Maina, who was convicted in November 2021 for laundering ₦2 billion in pension funds, was freed on February 25, 2025, the service told Premium Times in response to a Freedom of Information request jointly submitted with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

In its response, signed by Public Relations Officer JN Osuji, the correctional service said Maina’s early release complied with established rules governing prison remissions.

The statement reads, “In accordance with established legal principles, his sentence commenced from the date of arrest, October 25, 2019.

“Furthermore, pursuant to Order 138 of the Nigerian Correctional Service Standing Orders (Custodial), Revised Edition 2020, inmates who demonstrate good conduct and industry are eligible for statutory remission.”

The service said Maina “qualified for such remission under the extant rules,” resulting in an Earliest Date of Release (EDR) of February 25, 2025, which was “duly effected.”

It emphasised that the action was strictly within the law, with “no discretionary, preferential or extraneous considerations applied.”

Maina was convicted by the Federal High Court, Abuja (Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CR/258/2019) and sentenced to multiple prison terms, with the maximum being eight years to run concurrently.

A high‑profile Premium Times and OCCRP investigation, supported by the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), had earlier revealed how Maina allegedly acquired properties worth over $1.3 million in the United States and Dubai between 2010 and 2013 while siphoning public funds.

Maina fled Nigeria in March 2013 but returned in 2017, only for an investigative report uncovering his secret reinstatement and promotion as a public servant while a fugitive to trigger public outcry.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) later declared him wanted. He was arrested in 2019, and during an earlier attempt to arrest him, his son, Faisal, drew a pistol and rammed a bulletproof Range Rover through a hotel gate in a failed escape bid.

After absconding from trial a second time, Maina was rearrested in the Republic of Niger following an Interpol red notice and extradited to Nigeria.

In the charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/256/2019, prosecutors alleged Maina used fictitious names and fake bank accounts to launder pension funds, recruiting relatives who were bank officials to open accounts used in the scheme.

Three of Maina’s siblings, two sisters and a brother, testified against him, detailing how their identities and utility bills were used to open accounts for the fraudulent Common Input Property and Investment Ltd, which was also convicted and ordered to be wound up.

At sentencing, Federal High Court judge Okon Abang noted, “The convict’s salary as a civil servant was a little above ₦300,000, and could not have amounted to N2 billion even if he was saving all his salaries for 35 years.”

Maina also faces separate embezzlement charges that are still pending in court.

Since his release, Maina maintained a low profile until recently, when a branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) appointed him as its patron and presented him with a “Rule of Law and Courage Award.”

At the event, Maina reiterated his innocence, claiming that officials in the Buhari administration persecuted him.

“Top officials are persecuting me,” he said during the ceremony.

The national leadership of the NBA, however, swiftly condemned the appointment and announced disciplinary proceedings against Anthony Ojo, the NBA Garki Branch president who presented the award.