Wife
of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience, has asked the Federal High
Court in Abuja to vacate the interim forfeiture order it granted to the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on May 30, to freeze her 16
separate bank accounts containing aggregate sums of $5.8 million and N3.5
billion.
Patience
Jonathan, through her team of lawyers led by Chief I.A. Adedipe, SAN, and Chief
Mike Ozekhome, SAN, maintained that the court order had elapsed and could not
be extended by the EFCC.
She
told the court that the anti-graft agency obtained the forfeiture order by an
improper use of the judicial process. The 16
frozen bank accounts belong to 10 different organizations that were allegedly
linked to Patience Jonathan. In a
six–paragraph affidavit deposed to by one Chinedu Maduba, Mrs. Jonathan and the
firms admitted their ownership of the 16 bank accounts.
They
alleged that EFCC suppressed the fact that it had earlier approached the Lagos
division of the court for the same relief it applied for and secured from the
court in Abuja. While
five of the frozen accounts are domiciled in Skye Bank Plc with seven of them
in Diamond Bank Plc, the remaining accounts are with Union Bank Plc, First Bank
Plc, Ecobank and Zenith Bank Plc.
Meantime,
in a swift reaction, EFCC has also approached the court for an extension of the
forfeiture order against funds in the 16 bank accounts.
EFCC
lawyer, Mr. Richard Dauda, also applied for the extension application to be
heard first before the application by Patience Jonathan and the firms.
Justice
Binta Nyako has fixed November 23 to hear the two applications.
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