Stolen Pension Funds: Court dismisses Maina’s application to stop arrest

The Federal High Court on Friday in Abuja dismissed an application filed by the Chairman of the Pension Reform Taskforce Team, Abdulrasheed Maina to prevent his arrest by the police.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the application was meant to upturn the warrant of arrest issued on him by the Senate in March 2012.
Delivering a ruling, Justice Adamu Bello, held that Mr Magaji Mahmud (SAN), the counsel to the plaintiff “unwittingly converted the motion exparte to a motion on notice by leaking it to newsmen before appearing in court’’.

“The counsel leaked the information on the motion by granting interview to newsmen over what he intended the court to treat as an exparte.
“By leaking the relief in the motion to newsmen, he has denied the applicant of a possible discretion, of the court to grant the prayers, so, the application is dismissed.
“Relying on Section 4 (4) of the Fundamental Rights Procedure Rules of 2009, presupposes that the motion on exparte ought to have been filed and heard before the main application on Fundamental Rights of Enforcement Rule,’’ he said.
Bello said the counsel “did the opposite by filing the motion on notice, which will be heard on Feb. 18, first’’.
“A self inflicted urgency, fear, threat and of course, intimidation is not recognised by law.
“The applicant is therefore, mandated to proceed with his earlier motion on notice, which has already been the served on parties.
“It is too late to approach the court with this application in the circumstance,’’ he said.
At the resumed hearing of the exparte motion, Mahmud said the motion was brought in pursuant to Sections 46 (3) and 6 (6) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
He further submitted that the motion also relied on Order 4 of the Fundamental Rights Procedure Rule.
Mahmud said his client was seeking an order to compel parties to maintain “statuesque ante’’ pending the determination of a suit he filed against the Senate and others in relation to allegation of pension fraud.
Mahmud submitted that the applicant had approached the court with the “exparte motion’’ in view of the subsequent conduct of threat and intimidation on Maina by the defendants.
Maina, in a suit with Reg. No. FHC/ABJ/CS/65/20B, filed on Feb.13, sought an order to quash the report of the Senate Committee, which alleged that he (Maina) misappropriated part of the recovered pension loot.
He further sought the court to declare that the call for his arrest by the police was unconstitutional.
Maina subsequently demanded that a total of N1.5 billion be paid to him by the Senate as cost of damages done to his image by the allegations.
NAN reports that the Senate had ordered that Maina be arrested, following allegations that the taskforce team, which he led, misappropriated part of the fund it recovered from pension thieves.
The defendants, NAN reports, include the Senate President, the Clerk of the National Assembly and the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service.
Others are the Senate Committee on State and Local Government Administration and its Chairman, Sen. Kabiru Gaya and Sen. Aloysius Etuk, Chairman, Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service