After authorities have seized at least 20 properties in Nigeria after former pension fund official, Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, was convicted of money laundering, it has now been additional four properties, purchased with “cash in hand” belonging to the same subject.
Abdulrasheed Maina was appointed to safeguard the retirement funds of millions of Nigerians.
Instead, a court found that he had laundered some of the very funds he was tasked with protecting.
Now, three properties Maina purchased in the U.S. at the time he served as chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms have been discovered
Also found is an apartment he bought in the United Arab Emirates soon after he was removed from the role.
Maina’s case became a major scandal in Nigeria where he was convicted in 2021 of money laundering, and sentenced to a maximum of eight years in prison.
He was released early, in February 2025, and continues to proclaim his innocence.
Aside from the money laundering conviction, Maina is facing a separate charge of “receiving stolen property,” with prosecutors alleging that he dishonestly received 700 million naira (about $4.5 million at that time) from the pension fund under the guise of biometric enrollment contracts and official allowances. That case is ongoing.
Maina did not respond to requests for comment. “He is not interested,” his media assistant told OCCRP.
Following his 2021 conviction in the first case, Nigeria’s government sought to recoup some of the public funds that went missing during Maina’s 2010 to 2013 tenure as chair of the pension reform task force.
Authorities ordered him to pay 2.1 billion naira (about $5 million at the time), and they seized at least 20 properties around the country.
However, Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) may have missed four properties purchased by Maina, who is now 60 years old.
During his money laundering trial, a detective on the case did mention in testimony that Maina had purchased U.S. properties.
But the EFCC does not appear to have made moves to seize them, and no details were made public.
Property records acquired by OCCRP, Premium Times, and the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) show exactly where and when Maina bought the foreign real estate.
One of the properties is now in possession of his former wife, Laila Abdulrasheed Maina.
She maintains his first U.S. house, while two others are held by an American trust that he established for his children.
A hotel apartment he purchased in Dubai is now in possession of his daughter.
Maina bought all of the three U.S. properties “cash in hand” during the period when he was found to be laundering public money, according to the U.S. property records.
Contacted on telephone, the EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, would not comment on the content of the investigation into Maina, except to say that they would likely investigate assets he held abroad.
“If we have the information in that regard, we would want to pursue it,” Oyewale said.
