Nobody should believe Maina’s family, says Garba Shehu

 Garba Shehu, senior special assistant  to the president on media and publicity, has described as “freshly-minted falsehood”, the allegations by the family of Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman of Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration invited him back into the country.

At a press conference in Kaduna on Wednesday, a spokesman for the family said Maina was convinced to join the “change agenda” of the current government.

He wondered why government officials were denying their involvement in the reinstatement of Maina, saying there were records to prove that the dismissed civil servant was convinced to return to the country.

It is on record that Abdulrasheed Maina’s reform put to a stop the fraudulent withdrawal of huge sums from both the Nigerian Pension Board, the Nigerian Police Pension Board, etc. Perhaps it is his noble efforts that made him enviable to the present administration when they came into power to convince him to come back and assist in its ‘CHANGE’ agenda,” Aliyu had said.

“Abdulrasheed was in fact invited by this administration and he was promised security to come and clean up the mess and generate more revenue to government by blocking leakages. He succumbed to the present administration and came back to Nigeria. He has been working with the DSS for quite some time and he was given necessary security.”

But in a one-paragraph statement, Shehu asked the public to ignore the family.

“The claim that the Buhari administration invited the wanted Abdulrasheed Maina back into country is a freshly minted falsehood. Nobody should believe that.

“The family that made that claim simply wanted to be ridiculous. Please ignore them.”