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Maina denies jumping bail, says he’ll only attend trial when his doctors clear him

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The embattled Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, has denied jumping bail, adding that he would only attend his trial when his doctors declare him fit.

According to Maina, who appeared in an over six minutes video circulated online on Thursday, he is suffering from injured knees.

The video was supposedly recorded by a journalist who claimed to be doing an independent investigation to ascertain if Maina had jumped bail as being speculated.

The journalist’s face was however not shown, just as the alleged injured knee was not shown.

Maina is facing charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly laundering N2 billion. He has however been absent from court on seven consecutive occasions since September 29, 2020 when his trial was scheduled to have resumed.

His surety, Senator Ali Ndume, representing Borno South, had on October 2, told Justice Okon Abang that he could no longer find the defendant.

Asked when he would resume his trial, he said: “The doctors are here. You need to ask the doctors. But what they told me was that I would need six to seven weeks for recovery”, insisting that he was ready to face trial as soon as he was healed.

Read also: Maina missing, judge absent as money laundering trial postponed

“They told me that the next knee cap, they may not be able to do it here,” Maina added.

On allegations that he had jumped bail, he said: “You have done your independent investigation. You were able to get my location.

“Now you have seen me. You have seen the situation and you are able to tell whether or not I am running away from my trial.”

Speaking further, Maina alleged that the trial judge, Justice Abang, had in the course of the trial shown bias against him, citing an occasion when the judge asked him to stop gazing at him.

He said: “My lawyer asked him why, and he said ‘I don’t want him to look at me because I have a wife and children, and I want them alive’. Does that suggest that looking at him would kill his wife and children?”

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