 and handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).){kind=link}
More than six years after disappearing while on trial, Faisal Abdulrasheed Maina, son of convicted former Pension Reform Task Team chairman Abdulrasheed Maina, has been arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) and handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Security sources said Faisal was apprehended in the Karsana area of Abuja after intelligence reports indicated that he had quietly returned to Nigeria.
According to the sources, DSS operatives tracked and arrested him before transferring him to the EFCC to enable the enforcement of an existing court judgment against him.
Faisal had been on the run since 2020 after allegedly breaching the bail conditions granted to him while standing trial on charges of money laundering and conspiracy filed by the EFCC.
Despite his disappearance, the trial continued in his absence.
In 2021, Justice Okon Abang convicted Faisal and sentenced him to 14 years’ imprisonment.
The court also ordered that he should be arrested wherever he was found in Nigeria and remanded in a correctional facility to begin serving his prison sentence.
The judge further ruled that if he was located outside the country, the Federal Government should take the necessary legal steps to extradite him back to Nigeria.
A security source said the latest development clears the way for the execution of the court’s judgment.
«”The handover of Faisal to the EFCC is expected to facilitate the enforcement of the Court’s judgment and ensure that he serves his sentence in accordance with the law,” the source said.»
The arrest marks a major breakthrough in the long-running case linked to the controversial pension fraud scandal that attracted nationwide attention and reinforced concerns over accountability in the management of public funds.
With Faisal now back in custody, attention is expected to shift to the legal process of enforcing the prison sentence already imposed by the court.