Patience Jonathan asked court to stop suit against her as $15m in her account was a gift
Former Nigerian first lady, Patience Jonathan, has asked a Lagos federal high court to restrain human rights organisation the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) from getting her prosecuted her over a sum of $15m maintaing that the money was a gift.
SERAP has urged the attorney-general of the federation to prosecute her over the money, claiming she got it illegally from the public purse. In her defence, Patience Jonathan claimed that the $15m over which Serap is trying to get her prosecuted was a gift she received over the last 15 years from friends and well-wishers.
According to Serap’s executive director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, the organisation had been served with court papers in Dame Jonathan’s suit. He added that the suit was filed by members of the Union of Niger Delta Youth Organisation for Equity, Justice and Good Governance on behalf of themselves and Dame Jonathan.
In the suit, the plaintiffs sought a court order interim injunction restraining Serap from using any judicial process to coerce the attorney-general of the federation and justice minister from Dame Jonathan for owning legitimate private property. Also, the plaintiffs urged the court to restrain Serap from taking any further steps in further vilification, condemnation and conviction of Dame Jonathan in all public media.
“There has been a running battle between the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Mrs Jonathan with respect to the release of her legitimately earned funds, which were deposited in accounts opened in the names of certain companies by one of her husband’s aides without her authorisation. The funds in question were legitimate gifts from her friends and well-wishers over the last 15 years which she had been saving in order to utilise to upgrade family businesses and concerns which had been somewhat dormant by reasons of the long period of her husband service as a public officer in Nigeria.
“The gifts were given in small contributions by several persons, some of whom she cannot even now recall over this period of 15 years sometimes in as small a gift as N250,000. In order to preserve the value of these funds, which she did not require for any purpose at the time, she changed them into foreign exchange and kept them as cash for a long period in her home safe in Port Harcourt and Abuja,” the suit added.
According to the litigants, it was when the Jonathan family home in Otuoke was burnt down by hoodlums under the instigation of political adversaries in 2010 that Dame Jonathan began to think about banking these gifts, which had now grown to large sums in the US dollars. In 2010 she asked one of her husband’s domestic aids, Waripamo-Owei Emmanuel Dudafa, to assist her in opening bank accounts into which the funds could be deposited.
“Unknown to her, the said Dudafa, in a bid to be discreet about the owner of the funds, decided to bank the funds in the names of companies owned by him. When she discovered this, she was constrained to continue with the names of the companies when she was advised that it did not make any difference as to the ownership of the funds since the director of the company would appoint her as sole signatory to the accounts in question,” the suit added.
