Court Orders Patience Jonathan to Pay EFCC N50,000

Court Orders Patience Jonathan to Pay EFCC N50,000

A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Monday ordered Patience Jonathan, the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, to pay N50, 000 to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission after she withdrew her suit against the EFCC.

Patience had in February sued the EFCC for the alleged breach of her fundamental human rights.

She asked Justice Saliu Saidu to declare that the freezing of her $20m bank accounts and those of her relatives by the anti-graft agency as a gross violation of her rights to fair hearing and to own property.

Mrs. Jonathan asked the court to rule that the ransacking of her family property by the officials of the EFCC was illegal and also demanded the payment of N2bn in damages.

The plaintiff through her counsel, I. A. Adedipe (SAN), had prayed the court to restrain the EFCC from infringing on her right.

Counsel for the EFCC, Kayode Oni, faulted Mrs. Jonathan on her prayers before the court, arguing that her suit was “an abuse of court process.”

At the resumed hearing of the matter on Monday, Sammie Somiari who represented Mrs. Jonathan addressed the court on a notice of discontinuance of the suit, saying that he had “an instruction of his client to discontinue the matter.”

He said that an application had been filed before the court to that effect.

In response, Oni submitted that Patience had a right of discontinue the case, but pressed for a charge of N500,000 as the cost of filing processes in response to the suit.

The judge refused to grant the EFCC’s N500,000 request.

Justice Seidu struck out the suit and awarded N50,000 cost against the plaintiff.