Mrs. Jonathan battles 3 bank chiefs over her money frozen by EFCC

Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s wife, Patience, has dragged the Managing Directors/Chief Executive Officers of three banks before the Federal High Court in Abuja, asking that they should be jailed for allegedly not obeying an order directing them to lift the restrictions placed on her accounts.

The accounts were frozen following an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). But after another court order unfroze the accounts, the former First Lady alleged that the bank chiefs have refused to obey the court order.

Mrs Jonathan and 10 others initiated the committal proceedings against the three bank chiefs, who are the MDs/CEOs of First Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc and Diamond Bank Plc, Mr. Adesola Adeduntan, Mr. Tokunbo Abiru and Mr. Uzoma Dozie, respectively.

A total of 16 accounts, including 13 kept with the three banks, were sequel to an application by the EFCC frozen on May 30, 2017 by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The anti-graft agency had suspected that the huge sums of money in foreign currencies in those accounts were proceeds of crimes and requested that the accounts be frozen by the court.

But Patience Jonathan and others challenged the freezing order in an application to the court. Consequently, on December 5, 2017, the court unfroze the accounts and lifted all the restrictions placed on them.

However, following the alleged claim that the three banks had failed to comply with the court order, Patience and other 10 applicants, filed a motion on January 6, 2018, demanding the court to jail the three bank chiefs for disobeying court order.

Other applicants in the suit aside Patience who is the number 11 applicant are the Incorporated Trustees of Ariwabai Aruera Reachout Foundation, Pagmat Oil and Gas Nigeria Limited, Finchley Top Homes Limited , AM PM Global Network Limited, Magel Resort Limited and the Incorporated Trustees of Women for Change and Development Initiative Nigeria.

Others are Transocean Property and Investment Limited, Seagate Property Development Investment Company, Globus Integrated Services and Pluto Property and Investment Company.

The 10 applicants which are corporate bodies, are also linked to the wife of the former President.

In their application, three Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), Ifedayo Adedipe, Mike Ozekhome and Granville Abibo, who are Mrs. Jonathan’s legal team, contended that despite being served with Form 48 (notice of disobedience of court order) and Form 49 (notice of consequence of disobedience of court order), the bank chiefs had refused to comply with the December 5, 2017 court order.

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Meanwhile, the MDs of the three banks have refuted the claims that they disobeyed the December 5, 2017 order of the court as leveled against them.

First Bank MD, Adeduntan, in his response to the applicants’ motion, said that his bank had after verifying the authenticity of the court order served on it on December 11, 2017, complied with the order and unfroze the accounts of the applicants kept with the bank on December 15, 2017.

According to him, after unfreezing the applicants’ accounts, the bank’s management decided to close Patience Jonathan’s account and informed her to supply the details of an account into which the balance in her First Bank account could be transferred.

He stated that rather than send the details of an account, Patience requested that she be paid in cash, First Bank considered that if complied with, will amount to assisting the former First Lady to violate the provisions of the money laundering laws and banking regulations in Nigeria.

First Bank has therefore responded to the applicants’ motion by filing another application on February 1, 2018, demanding among others, an order striking out or dismissing the committal proceedings and the Forms 48 and 49 served on him.

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The Bank is contending that the committal proceedings were incompetent since the Forms 48 and 49 were not served on him personally as required by the relevant laws and the court’s rules.

This is even as the EFCC had filed an ex parte application requesting a fresh order freezing the accounts belonging to Mrs Jonathan and 10 others.

But the former First Lady, through her lawyers, asked the court to dismiss the EFCC’s application.

When the case came up on Friday, EFCC was not represented, but Justice Nyako noted that hearing notice was only served on the commission 24 hours before the proceedings.

She, therefore, fixed April 11 for hearing, directing that fresh notice be served on the commission.

 

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