PENSION FUNDS FRAUD: THE ROT WE DISCOVERED WAS SHOKING - SENATOR ALLOYSIUS ETOK

“We have incontrovertible evidence of fictitious 

names he used to siphon money and also 

the account numbers.”

Two years after it was laid to rest in the hallowed chambers of the national assembly, the report of the Senate Committee on Investigation of Pension Administration in Nigeria has continued to dot the pages of our newspapers and the airways like a recurring decimal .

For reasons not unconnected with the magnitude of the alleged criminal pillaging of the sweat of our senior citizens, coupled with the recommendations for reformation of the sector, neither the investigator nor the accused have been at rest. The parties involved have hauled a litany of allegations at each other, ranging from bribery to fraud and even impersonation. 

In this interview, the chairman of the Senate committee on Establishment and Public Service who was also the chairman of the committee that investigated the pension fraud, Senator Aloysius Etok  attempts to put the records  straight and lay to rest the strings of contentious remarks  made against him by the principal accused, AbdulRasheed Maina.

Here is an excerpt of the interview.

Your tenure in the senate is winding up. What have been your greatest achievements so far?

My greatest achievement by the grace of God and the Senate of the federal republic of Nigeria is being able to rescue pensioners from the clutches of the Maina-led Pension Task Force Team that subjected them to untold hardship by diverting their money and leaving them, their dependants and their next of kins in penury. I thank God that I was able to work with a team that strengthened the pension administration as we have it today to the extent that pensioners are today better off than they were in the past.

The chairman of the disbanded Pension Task Force Team, Abdulrasheed Maina said you were out to stop his team from putting an end to the financial leakages in the system, thereby preventing the arrest and prosecution of alleged pension thieves. How would you react to this?

I want to say that Maina is the funniest man I have ever come across in my life. To start with, I never knew him from Adam, I was not even aware of what he was doing until the committee to probe the rots in the pension sector was set up. I only saw him when he appeared before my committee. I have never worked with those in charge of pension or pension related matters until I was given the chairmanship of the senate committee on Establishment and Public Service Matters which has an oversight on all pension establishments in the country, including the Federal Civil Service Pension and working on the conditions of the civil servants and public officers.

Perhaps, I may not have even known Maina or his Task force Team if a joint committee had not been set up to investigate the administration and payment of pension as a result of public outcry against the pathetic plight of pensioners which was almost becoming a national disgrace.

I was not even the one that moved the motion. I think it was Senator Heineken Lokpobiri. He was apparently moved by what he saw in Ondo where about three fragile old men collapsed and died while queuing in the hot sun for what Maina and his team called verification. It was out of that sympathy that Senator Heineken brought the motion to the floor of the Senate. Not until after it was passed and approved by the Senate that our Committee was saddled with the responsibility of unraveling the roots of the decay.

From the foregoing, how do I fit the description of a man with a pre-conceived agenda which Maina is talking about?

Do you have any regret for carrying out that task?

I don't. It is one job I would remain grateful to God for giving me the opportunity to serve in a capacity that will alleviate the suffering of the masses and by extension impact positively on their lives. I have no regret at all. In fact if I am giving the opportunity again, I will do the same.

Maina also accused you of misleading the senate that he (Maina ) refused to honour the invitation of your committee? Is it true?

I never lied or misled the Senate about his refusal to appear brfore the Committee. Moreover, it wasn't about Etok, but the entire committee of 18 people. We waited for him for an upward of 2 days for him to honour our invitation which he declined. . The last day in question, rather than respect our invitation, he chose to hire people to come and demonstrate and fly banners, calling for a stop to our investigation while Maina stood with them at the gate. You can imagine such arrogance and impunity from a supposed civil servant who is being invited to testify in an investigation of financial impropriety by the Senate of the federal republic of Nigeria. After all said and done, he said he came to the gate of the national assembly but was prevented from coming into the complex by the demonstrators who said he should go back. Can you imagine such a bogus lie?

Would you want to take up Maina's challenge to show Nigerians via document where he or his team took the N195billion your committee alleged his leadership stole?

I don’t join issue on proofs of culpability with a man who had been copiously indicted by the senate of the federal republic of Nigeria? I can say with every sense of modesty, the senate is composed of men and women of appreciable intelligence with proven records of relative integrity who would not just pass a report of such public attention without proper scrutiny.

For your information and that of Maina who feels he can be reintegrated into the system through the back door after all the gargantuan pillaging of the sweat of aged men and women who had spent the best part of their life serving this country, we have reports and documents to back our submission. We took testimonies, we researched and we did investigations in the related offices. Also, we have testimonies of far reaching evidences on live cameras and tapes. We have incontrovertible evidence of the fictitious names he used to siphon money and their account numbers as well. We have on tape the evidence of a junior officer whom he used as a front and the forward and backward movement of the money. Let Maina and those who may be deceiving him know that Nigerians are no fools. Their memories cannot be anesthetized to the testimonies given against Maina by members of his team during the investigation.

What is the position of your constituency on this legion of allegations Maina has continued to heap on you. Have you had any occasion to be queried, eyebrows raised or something of sorts?

My constituents are happy that I did a good job because it impacted too on their lives positively. Many of them sent me letters of commendations. Even beyond my constituency, many people all over the federation sent letters telling me how they were deprived of their pension by Maina and how elated they were that the rots were exposed and new structures to ensure sanity put in place. For instance, at the federal civil service pension, Maina said he met 104,000 people on the payroll. He told us he reduced the number to 72,000 without verification or biometric only for him to stuff the place again with his own pensioners and ballooned the number again to 130,000 before he left. In most instances, he could neither justify the reduction nor give good reasons for his increment. If he says he is removing names, how does he explain the removal of the name of some of the executive members of the pensioners? In some of the geo- political zones, there were stories of woes of how Maina came with his group and told the pensioners that they were not given money for the exercise and that the pensioners should contribute money to enable the Task Force do its job. Indeed, the poor people had to task themselves to contribute money for Maina and his men. He went around like that deceiving the people without carrying out any verification in the form of computer documentation or biometric only for him to come back and cut the list into two arbitrarily just to deceive the government that he was working. Meanwhile even after the spurious reduction, he still kept on collecting the same allocation he was collecting prior to the said exercise.

The committee report on the issue was carefully analyzed, all the points raised were supported by documents and the entire Senate agreed and voted for its adoption. Even the senators from his state did not raise any objection about the content of the report. The entire senate approved the report from the beginning to the end and after which, the Senate for the first time extended the period of investigation of the committee including its scope to include Customs, Immigration, and Prisons Pension office (CIPPO) that man was the chairman. It was shocking what we found out. Maina was virtually operating from his suitcase! Up till today we could not find any document he used to administer that pension office.

And nothing was done?

Don't ask me. Go and do your own investigation.

Maina said he and his team were vindicated last year going by a petition written by a personal assistant and lawyer to one of the alleged pension thieves under trial by the EFCC and the ICPC. The petition contained a litany of allegations against you for collecting money from their boss to the tune of N3billion. The money they said was meant for farm machinery and landed property in Abuja. What is your take? 

These are mere fabrications. I have addressed the press several times on this. To start with, I don't have a farm, so why should I collect farm equipment? Do you know that I have only met Shuaibu only once when he stopped by in my office? But should we not ask why he is against Shuaibu? It is because Shuaibu is the main custodian of most of the information of his operation. Shuaibu is the man who knows him very well: he is the man who handed over to Maina and he knows everything he, Maina does. So, you can see why he is against the man. If Maina is saying he arrested people, ask him how many he caused to be arrested? All those who are standing trial now or were tried were never squealed on by Maina. They were arrested or their names listed for interrogation by an order of the Head of Service and until we came on board, only about two people were taken to court. It was the committee that compelled EFCC that all those on the list must be taken to court. 

What is your take on the recurring allegation by Abdulrasheed Maina that he had a meeting with you in your house where you solicited for the sum of N2billion to write a good report about him?   

I swear by the Bible that I have never at any time in my life a demanded for any money from Maina .I also swear by the Bible that I have never arranged any meeting with Maina in my life.  I am not a rich man, I have never seen a billion in my life therefore, I couldn't have been asking for such amount in multiple folds from Maina. Listen to the full story because I have been trying to keep it low in view of the fact that it is before the petitions and privileges committee in the senate which is like a court.

I have never asked Maina for a meeting, neither have I given him my phone number. The said meeting he is talking about was that I was just in my sitting room one day when somebody came in and said Maina was in my compound. I asked which Maina and why should he be in my compound. I told the person that Maina was standing trial before my committee; therefore, he cannot come to my house. For over 30 minutes he stood outside my house and I refused to see him. After a time, those who were in the living room with me begged that I should see him and at least listen to what he had to say.  Finally, I said okay but on one condition that I would see him outside my living room because I didn't trust him. I met him in a lobby outside my living room, adjourning my swimming pool. As God would have it, I called my boys to stand at earshot so that could have a witness to our discussions. When he sat down he said people have accused him of taping discussion and immediately I encouraged him to tape ours.

I asked him why he came to my house and he said he was sorry for barging on me without invitation and that he had to come because he had something to tell me. He started by saying that I was the most difficult he had ever met saying. I looked at him dead pan, not swayed by his flattery. Continuing, he said I was the only one who could help him or destroy him... Still I wasn't moved. I told him I was not God and that it was only God who possessed such power.

I asked him what he wanted and he told me he needed me to spare the task force to continue and that he desired to continue at all cost.  I took a sweeping look at him from head to toe and I could see the desperation of a haughty man, propelled by wealth to believe that everything can be monetized. Continuing, he boasted that my life will never be the same again for knowing him (Maiana) adding that as long as I know him, I needn't know anybody again in the country.  At this point, I fixed my gaze directly at his eye to let him know that I wasn't impressed or intimated by his egoistic chattering as I told him succinctly that I know my job and I do it with my conscience not minding whose ox is gored and that aim contented with what aim doing.

I got the feeling that my message wasn't lost on him as he now began to tell stories of people who had benefitted from the scam, reeling out names and instances.  Still, I remained unimpressed even as he parroted further his connections with the powers that be. When he realized that I wasn't moved by his rhetoric. He asked why I was so difficult and that he had approached six of my colleagues in the senate to talk to me and they told him I would not listen to them.

He also told me that he had been to my office and my staff refused to give him my phone number and my house address. He said he had to give somebody N350, 000 for the person to give him direction to my house. At that point, I became scared  because  I thought that any man who could give such amount to somebody to bring him to my house, could go around to give money to my cook or anybody around me to deal with me.

Former Senate President, David Mark, set up the Senate Committee that probed the pension fraud.

He begged me profusely to the point of him almost going on his knees that I should allow him to stay in the task force because there were a lot of things in the pipeline for him in the pension sector. He said there were plans to add NIPOST, Railways, and PHCN pension to fleet already under his control and that when these happen, I would never regret knowing him.

It was at this point that he moved to the area of money. He asked me how much money I needed. I told him I didn't need any money. He said he will give me N2billion, I declined, He moved it up to N3biilion, still I stood my ground, He raised it up to N4billion, yet I said I didn't need his money.  He then said that he could add another one billion naira to make it N5biilion, yet, I said no. Unrelenting he went ahead to add another dimension. He said he would insist and beg Mr. President to give me a ticket to be the governor of Akwa Ibom state. I told him I didn't need that either.  I told him that all I needed from him was cooperation with the committee for us to find a solution to the problem at hand.

Hitherto, the first day the committee was inaugurated, Abdul Rushed Mania sent somebody to tell me that I should be soft with him in my interrogation and that he had kept $500, 000 for me. This got me curious that if at inauguration somebody was already offering me half a million dollars, there must be a lot in the investigations than meet the ordinary eye.

It was against the background of the inauguration offer that I told myself that I had to gird my loin as there shall be more attempts to compromise me.  Therefore, I wasn't really surprised when he kept on luring me with all the criminally juicy offers.  When I had had my fill of his wicked offers, I stood up and told him to start to go, but not without giving him my final position on all his criminal gestures.  I told him that if anybody told you that Aloysius Etok were looking for money in this assignment; tell the person that aim not for sale. I also told him that if anybody comes to ask for money on behalf of the committee, he should not give such a person because the committee is not looking for money but is doggedly committed to solving the problems of the pensioners because one day we shall all be in the position of the senior citizens.

When he stood up to go, he asked me to call my boys to offload something from his car for me. I asked him what it was and he money. I told him emphatically again that I didn't need the money. He then invited one of the guys who came with him, a tall guy. The guy knelt down and held my legs and said I should not reject the gift, that it was traditional and that each time they went to anybody's house, they gave the person such a gift. I neglected the guy who was holding my legs and turned to Maina to remind him of what I had been telling him all along. I don't need any gift,  I am doing an assignment that I don't want to be corrupted.

I made sure I led him out of my compound  since he had said he gave somebody some money to bring him to my house, I wanted to make sure that he didn't bribe my security and other people around. As he was about moving to his car, he turned around and said since I didn’t want money, I should bring a company's name and that he would give all the food supply contract in the prisons all over the country to me. I said need it.  He left saying a word that still rings in my ear “People said you are a difficult man. Why are you so difficult?”