Nigeria’s former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, has proposed to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), an out-of-court “amicable resolution of all cases” the agency has against her.
The proposal is dated January 30, the same date a federal court dismissed Mrs. Jonathan’s June 2017 breach of fundamental rights suit against the EFCC for freezing some of her accounts. She wanted N2bn in compensation.
In it, the EFCC disclosed the success of its international collaboration and the “major breakthrough” it has achieved, following its tracing of two domiciliary accounts in which Mrs. Jonathan had a total of $11.8m.It is interesting that the proposal became public on February 13, the date the EFCC released a description of Mrs. Jonathan’s extraordinary moneymaking, banking and shopping habits, and the scope of the agency’s investigations.
One, in Skye Bank, was opened on her behalf on September 12, 2013 by Dudafa Waripamo Owei, who was at the time a presidential aide for domestic affairs in her husband’s government. In it, about $7,452,319.32 in suspicious funds was deposited in a two-year span between February 2013 and April 2015, with Dudafa himself depositing nearly $2m.
Into the second account, which was opened on February 22, 2013 at First Bank, Mrs. Jonathan herself deposited $2,037,650. On February 27, Dudafa had led off, with $400, 000, a bustling line of over 30 ‘depositors’.
Armed with the bank cards, Mrs. Jonathan mercilessly shopped the world’s elite stores. In one day in China, she ran through an astonishing $36,458.40 in two stores.
Little surprise Mrs. Jonathan responded to the disclosures by immediately proposing “an amicable settlement.”
She is a woman of vast interests, including an extensive collection of prime real estate in Abuja, and in Bayelsa and Rivers states.
And then there is bank account after bank account to which she has been linked, including one that was opened in Skye on February 7, 2013 which the EFCC said it discovered through an intelligence report. The agency told a court in May 2017 its investigators found that cash deposits had been made by Mrs. Jonathan through Dudafa and frequently, one Festus Iyoha, a State House steward.
But the biggest story broke in September 2016, exactly 10 years after she first made the news, when it was discovered the EFCC had frozen $31.5 million in bank accounts allegedly belonging to Mrs. Jonathan. Outraged, she approached the federal court in Lagos, affirming ownership and seeking an order to defreeze the accounts.Between February 8, 2013 and January 30, 2015, about $6.7 million, suspected to be proceeds of crime, the commission told the court in final forfeiture hearings.
In other words, when Mrs. Jonathan and her lawyers belly up to that negotiating table she now seeks, should that happen, they must be prepared to explain upwards of $31.5m, way beyond that alleged pre-paid, into-your-domiciliary account medical bonanza of $15m.
But let us also remember that Mrs. Jonathan’s camp did tell a different story about that money. Suing SERAP in October 2016, she said she had come by it through 15 years’ (roughly the PDP era) worth of the generosity of friends and well-wishers.
“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,” she explained, and you could almost see her tears. And it was only in 2010, “she began to think about banking these gifts which had now grown to large sums in United States Dollars” right under her pillow.
That was when she had summoned the literal and figurative domestic help: “Mr. Know-How” Dudafa, who escorted two senior officers of Skye Bank to meet her at the presidential palace on March 22, 2010.
In her story, Mrs. Jonathan cleverly avoided mentioning that on that day on her couch in 2010, she had Skye open five accounts for her.
But remember: that was three full years before the other two accounts of February 22 and September 13, 2013, upon which the EFCC spoke up last week; and the February 7, 2013 that was holding $5.7m in May 2017.
As it turns out, Dudafa opened only one of those March 2010 accounts in the name of Her Excellency Dr. Dame Chief (Mrs). Patience Fakabelema Jonathan: the domestic affairs aide opened the others in the names of his own companies using the names of his domestic staff!
In the SERAP suit, Mrs. Jonathan’s lawyers bluffed about the Dudafa story, despite the accounts having been opened in her presence: “Unknown to her the said Mr. 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…”
Nonetheless, in that lone account in her own name at the time, the former First Lady held a balance of $5m.
On September 15, 2016 at the Federal High Court in Lagos, Dudafa’s companies pleaded guilty in the $26 million money-laundering charges.
But perhaps the funds at stake are even larger? In a statement in October 2017, the presidency referred not only to the $31.4 million, but “an earlier USD 15 million allegedly kept for the medical treatment of her mother, as well as a forfeited amount of USD 5.9 million…”
Still, as I wrote here on September 19, 2016, Mrs. Jonathan should be given all the funds she says belong to her, but she must demonstrate, in court, how she earned it.
But let us remember the past. Mrs. Jonathan came to the limelight in 2006 when she was twice held by the EFCC for money laundering. Later, in March 2011, she would take out an advertorial in the press threatening me for commenting on the story, but the facts survive: In August and September 2006, the EFCC reported her as having tried to launder vast funds, the first time for N104million, and the other for $13.5m.
Those cases have not been referred to in a while, except in 2010 when Nuhu Ribadu, the agency’s pioneer chairman who arrested her as a money-launderer in 2006, demonstrated questionable recall and character by denying his own words and work. But he was an interloper at that point, and lacked credibility. But now that Mrs. Jonathan wants to discuss what is effectively accountability and justice, so should the EFCC, as an institution.
Regrettably, the EFCC has a questionable reputation here. In October 2016, Iliyasu Kwarbai, the agency’s Deputy Director of Operations, told protesters and civil society activists at the Lagos office that should evidence of corruption be found against Mrs. Jonathan, she would be prosecuted. We have heard similar promises from the agency in the past 12 years.
That is why this is the EFCC’s biggest moment. Will it show character, or will it become a charlatan and an accomplice?
Will it take the bait, and sit at a table to discuss peace and love with Mrs. Jonathan?
