Court Rejects Patience Jonathan’s Application To Access Frozen Account

Court Rejects Patience Jonathan’s Application To Access Frozen Account

The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has refused to grant Mrs Patience Jonathan’s application to unfreeze her account with a balance of $15.591m.


Although the former First Lady did not show up in court on Monday, a group of women loyal to her were in court.

Justice Mohammed Idris ordered parties in the suit to file their pleadings since issues have been joined as to the ownership of the money.


He said all the defendants in the suit formulated different issues from that which was formulated by the plaintiff in the originating summons, a situation which the court said was unacceptable.

The court also held that it lacked the competence to determine the issues raised by the defendants in their written addresses, after they all abandoned the specific issues formulated by the plaintiff, Mrs Jonathan.

In the circumstances, the court ordered the parties to file pleadings in accordance with the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules 2009, saying trial would proceed accordingly.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had urged the court not to unfreeze the account because the monies were suspected to be “proceeds of crime”.

Mrs Jonathan, however asked the court to order the EFCC to unfreeze the account to enable her access the money.

Those listed as defendants in the suit include: EFCC, Skye Bank Plc, former President Jonathan’s former aide, Waripamo-Owei Dudafa; as well as Pluto Property and Investment Company Ltd.

Others are Seagate Property Development and Investment Company Ltd., Trans Ocean Property and Investment Company Ltd., and Avalon Global Property Development Ltd.

The companies, through their representatives, had all pleaded guilty to laundering the money when they were arraigned before Justice Babs Kuewumi of the same court.