The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has again declared Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, wanted, this time over an alleged case of receiving stolen property.
The commission announced the declaration on Wednesday, 23 September 2026, in a public notice carrying Maina’s photograph and signed by its Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale. It was published on the agency’s official X account.
According to the notice, Maina, 61, is an indigene of Biu in Borno State. The EFCC urged anyone with information on his whereabouts to come forward, listing its offices in Ibadan, Uyo, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Benin, Makurdi, Kaduna, Ilorin, Enugu, Kano, Lagos, Gombe, Port Harcourt and Abuja, along with a telephone line and its official email address.
The commission did not state the nature or value of the property allegedly received, when the alleged offence took place, or whether fresh charges had been filed. It also did not say whether the declaration is tied to any of the pension cases for which Maina is already known.
For a man once at the centre of Nigeria’s pension recovery drive, the wanted notice is the latest turn in a legal saga stretching back more than a decade. Maina led the task team between 2010 and 2013 under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, charged with cleaning up fraud in the pension system. His tenure ended in controversy, and he was first declared wanted by the EFCC in 2017 after failing to appear for trial.
He fled the country and was arrested in Niger Republic on 30 November 2020, then returned to Nigeria the following month to face prosecution.
In November 2021, the Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Okon Abang, convicted Maina on a money laundering charge involving more than N2 billion in pension funds. He was handed jail terms across the counts to run concurrently, amounting to an eight-year sentence, and the court ordered the forfeiture of assets linked to the case. His company, Common Input Property and Investment Limited, was also convicted. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and sentence in May 2023.
Maina did not serve the full term. The Nigerian Correctional Service confirmed his release from the Kuje Correctional Centre on 25 February 2025, attributing it to statutory remission and good conduct. The service said his sentence had been calculated from October 2019, the date of his initial arrest.
The fresh wanted declaration is separate from that concluded matter. It comes against the backdrop of a second criminal case that remains unresolved. Maina is standing trial alongside a co-defendant, Ann Igwe Olachi, on a nine-count charge over the alleged receipt of about N738.6 million in funds said to be linked to biometric enrolment contracts for pensioners. Both were arraigned in 2019 and pleaded not guilty. The case is before the Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Asokoro, Abuja.
That trial has moved slowly. In February 2026, the presiding judge, Justice Abubakar Kutigi, voiced open frustration at repeated adjournments and Maina’s long absence from court, warning that he could revoke the defendant’s bail. The judge noted at the time that Maina had last appeared before him more than three years earlier. He declined a further adjournment and said the trial would continue with or without the defendant present.
Whether the new allegation connects to that pending N738.6 million matter or to something entirely fresh is not clear from the EFCC’s notice, and the commission has not clarified the point.
The reappearance of Maina’s name on the wanted list underlines how difficult his cases have been to close out, even after a conviction, an appeal and a completed prison term. It also fits a wider pattern of renewed EFCC activity in September 2026, with the commission issuing wanted declarations against several former public officials in the same period.
For now, the position is straightforward. The EFCC says it is looking for Maina and wants the public’s help finding him. It has not disclosed the substance of the allegation behind the declaration, and the claims, like those in his continuing trial, remain untested. Anyone named in a wanted notice is presumed innocent until a court determines otherwise.
What happens next will likely turn on whether the commission locates Maina and moves the matter into court, and on how the long-running N738.6 million case proceeds at the FCT High Court, where the judge has already signalled his impatience.