Court lifts restriction on Patience Jonathan’s $5.8m account

A federal high court in Lagos has unfrozen the Skye bank account of Patience Jonathan containing $5.8 million.

The order of the court was sequel to an application argued by Adedayo Adedipe, counsel to the former first lady.

Adedipe urged the court to unfreeze the account on the grounds that Jonathan was not a party in the suit leading to the order made by the court.

Adedipe while citing judicial authorities contended that the order was an abuse of court process as the court had no jurisdiction to make an order against a party that is not a party in a suit filed before the court.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which initiated the suit leading to the order made by the court freezing the account did not file any response to the application filed to discharge the order.

Mojisola Olatoregun upheld the submission of Adedipe and discharged the order freezing the account.

Sometime last year based on an application filed before the court by EFCC, the court ordered that the account of Jonathan containing $5,8 million domiciled with Skye bank should be frozen on the ground that the money was suspected to be proceeds of crime.

Also affected by the said order were the accounts of five companies holding N7.4 billion and the account of Esther Oba holding $429,381.87.

The accounts were located in six different commercial banks.

The order of the court was sequel to a further and better affidavit in support of Ex-parte originating summons sworn to by Abdulahi Tukur an investigating officer of the EFCC and filed before the court by EFCC prosecutor Rotimi Oyedepo Iseoluwa,

Tukur averred that there was urgent need for the court to direct the managers of the bank accounts contained in the schedule filed with the summons FHC/L/CS/1343/16 to in the interim, forfeit the money contained therein to prevent further tampering with the account being sought to be attached.

Olatoregun while granting the order freezing the accounts listed in the attached schedule, ordered the anti -graft agency to file an undertaking as to damages if it turned out that the order was not to have been made.

According to the affidavit by Tukur, Jonathan’s money in Skye bank account number 2110001712 with current balance of $5,842,316.66 was presumably suspected to be proceed of crime.