Same court again orders interim forfeiture of Mrs Jonathan’s $5.8m

A Lagos Federal High Court on Wednesday sanctioned a fresh ex parte application seeking the forfeiture of $5.8M belonging to wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience.

The order followed a fresh application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) praying the court to allow the money to be forfeited to the Federal Government pending the determination of the motion on notice.

The presiding judge, Justice Mojisola Olatoregun, after listening to the argument of the commission held, that the “Order is granted as prayed.”

This is coming less than 24 hours after the same judge following EFCC’s withdrawal of an application seeking to stop Patience Jonathan’s access to the money, which is in Skye Bank, granted her free access to the money in question.

Sequel to EFCC’s earlier application, Olatoregun had in December 2016, ordered that the account be frozen.

On April 6, while ruling on the matter between the EFCC and the former First Lady, Olatoregun instructed that the account be unfrozen and a lawyer to Mrs Jonathan later claimed she made a withdrawn $100,000 from the money.

The EFCC however, filed a stay of execution application before the court. But on Tuesday, April 24, Rotimi Oyedepo, counsel to the EFCC, approached the court to announced it was withdrawing the application because EFCC had decided not to appeal against the order unfreezing the account.

Following the commission’s position, Ifedayo Adedipe, Mrs Jonathan’s lawyer, then withdrew a contempt application against Skye Bank, which had declined allowing the former first lady access to her account.

The presiding judge, Justice Olatoregun then granted the prayer for the withdrawal of the applications.

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