On Tuesday, a prosecution witness of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission claimed that a former chairman of the defunct Pension Reformed Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, operated attaché companies with N3bn income in their accounts without engaging in any business.
Maina is being prosecuted by the anti-graft agency before the Federal High Court in Abuja on charges of money laundering involving N2bn.
The woman, Rouqayya Ibrahim, would be numbered to be the ninth prosecution witness, and an investigator with the EFCC.
She disclosed that her team conducted “a concealed income analysis of the defendant.”
She said the investigation revealed that Maina’s company accounts had N3bn income when he could not have been able to legitimately save more than N109m if he had received his last salary of N256, 000 continuously for 35 years without spending a penny from it.
The witness said, “Regarding his known income which is his salary, we discovered that his last payment which was in February 2013 was N256,000 and part of the concealed income analysis we did was that should the defendant have earned or was paid this sum pay month, for 35 years as a civil servant without spending a single kobo of the salary he would he would have only received N109m for the 35 years without spending a single kobo and we compared that with the result of our concealed income and net worth analysis and discovered that he had an estimate of at least N3bn of known income from illegitimate source.”
The presiding judge, Justice Okon Abang had on Tuesday, rejected the defence lawyer’s request for an adjournment to enable him prepare better for the case.
But the adjournment request was opposed by the EFCC’s prosecuting counsel, Mr Faruk Abdullah.
Abang ruled that contrary to the claim by the lawyer, Anayo Adibe, the defendant’s right to fair hearing was not under any threat.
Justice Abang stated that Maina had not been appearing in court since the matter resumed on September 29, until when he was brought on December 4 after he was arrested based on the arrest warrant issued by the court.