Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman of the Pension Reform
Task Team (PRTT), says he needs about six weeks to recover before he can attend
trial in court.
Maina has been absent from trial since he was released after
meeting his bail conditions.
Ali Ndume, senator representing Borno south, who is standing
as a surety for Maina, had told the federal high court in Abuja on October 3,
that he did not know the whereabouts of the former pension boss.
But Francis Oronsaye, Maina’s counsel, told the court that
his client was at Maitama General Hospital receiving treatment.
Speaking from a hospital bed in a video which surfaced on
Thursday, Maina said he is not trying to evade trial.
“What the doctors told me is that I’ll need at least six to
seven weeks of recovery because it is a knee cap injury,” Maina said
He also said he suffers a constant rise in blood pressure
which affects his head and makes him drowsy.
On the issue of asset recovery, Maina explained that he saw
a report that noted that he would recover N10 billion, but denied saying so.
“I never told anyone to go and say so. But it is something I
can do. I did that during the Jonathan administration and we recovered N1.6
trillion as a committee and during this administration, I recovered N1.3 trillion,”
he said.
“I can also do that for President Muhammadu Buhari’s
administration.
“Imagine an administration that owes me N65 billion, which
is five percent of my recovery of N1.3 trillion, now putting me up for trial
over N2 billion. Do they think Nigerians are stupid?
“If it is true, then the same EFCC who is taking me to court
needs to be joined as defendants in the case because all the security agencies
were part of my team.”
Maina is standing trial on 12 counts of alleged money
laundering.
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