$15m scandal: Patience Jonathan accuses EFCC of hiring mercenaries

The wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience, says the four persons who pleaded guilty to money laundering charges on behalf of the four companies linked to her are mercenaries hired by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The ex-President’s wife stated this in a statement on Thursday by her media aide, Chima Osuji.
She alleged that the EFCC presented four unknown persons, who were not authorised by the companies’ boards to plead guilty on behalf of the companies.
 
She said it was a ploy by the EFCC to ensure that her hard-earn money was confiscated.
The ex-President’s wife argued that the EFCC failed to comply with Section 477 (2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, by not presenting to the court on Thursday any letter to show that the four persons were authorised by the companies to represent them.
“This is a clear evidence of the desperation of the prosecution to pull down the former First Lady and confiscate her hard-earned money.
“It is an irony that it was the former First Lady who went to court for the repatriation of her confiscated money when she realised that the EFCC and its co-travellers were playing politics with this issue after she had come out publicly to say that the said money belongs to her and that she has all evidence to prove the sources of her money. Up till this very moment, the EFCC has refused to interrogate or invite her for questioning.
“The biggest twist in court on Thursday was that the fourth to seventh defendants pleaded guilty to all the 15 counts. It is clear that these unknown faces were agents of the EFCC, who have been stage-managed and tutored to come to court to complicate the case as a strategy to confiscate her money,” the ex-President’s wife’s aide, Osuji, said.