Why Buhari fired Maina

    

   Fresh facts have emerged as to why President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the immediate disengagement of the former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina from the civil service.

    President Buhari, in a memo to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, equally demanded a full report of the circumstances of Maina’s recall and posting to the Ministry of Interior. Presidential spokesman Mr Femi Adesina, who disclosed these facts in a statement yesterday, said the report should be submitted to the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari, before the close of work.

   

   A source in the presidency said President Buhari directed Maina’s disengagement for absconding from the service and causing an embarrassment to the government.  “In issuing the directive that Maina should be immediately disengaged from service, Mr. President acted on a new set of facts. One, for leaving the service without permission;he ran away from the country. And two, for the embarrassment he has brought to the government,” he said. The source, however, emphasised that Maina’s reinstatement was done without recourse to the president.

     Oyo-Ita visits Villa, exonerates self. The Head of Service waslast night at the Office of the Chief of Staff as directed by the president. She was in Calabar for the burial of her elder sister when the president’s directive was issued. Oyo-Ita, who was accompanied to the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja by two aides, arrived the Office of the Chief of Staff at exactly 6:40pm. Attired in a multi-colour ankara, she was sighted clutching some files with which she went into the meeting with the Chief of Staff. She was driven out of the Presidential Villa at exactly 7:15pm after what an official described as “a brief but crucial grilling session.”

     As of 8:00pm yesterday, the Chief of Staff was still inside his office. Oyo-Ita had earlier exonerated herself from the reinstatement of the former PRTT chairman. The Assistant Director, Media Relations in the OHOCSF, Mohammed Manga said “The attention of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation has been drawn to several media reports that the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation has approved the re-instatement into the Federal Civil Service of Alhaji Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina and his subsequent posting to the Ministry of Interior.

  

    “The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) wishes to inform the public that the re-instatement and posting of Alhaji Abdulrasheed Abdullahi Maina never emanated from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. Consequently, the purported re-instatement and posting by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation is totally erroneous and misleading,” Manga said.  The Minister of Interior Abdulrahman Dambazau had in a statement on Sunday explained that Maina was recalled through the Office of the Head of Service.