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EFCC Not Prosecuting Or Persecuting Patience Jonathan – Lai Mohammed

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Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s minister of information, on Tuesday, September 13, 2016 said that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, was not probing Dame Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s immediate former first lady.

He was reacting reports that that Mrs. Jonathan, wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan was being persecuted by the EFCC after the anti-graft commission ordered that her accounts in Skye Bank amounting to $31.4 million be frozen.

She has approached a federal court in Lagos claiming ownership of $34.1 million which the EFCC froze in Skye Bank and filing a fundamental human rights suit against the anti-graft commission and the bank.

RELATED: Criminalising Patience Jonathan Is Both Malicious And Unacceptable (READ)

ALSO READ: Mrs. Jonathan vs EFCC: Buhari, Ex-Presidents, First Ladies Need To Declare Assets Publicly

While speaking with journalists in Kwara State, Lai Mohammed dismissed insinuation that the former first lady was being persecuted by the EFCC. He explained that it was only after she took ownership of the aforementioned sum that another $5 million was discovered.

“If you look at the history of Mrs. Patience Jonathan’s issue, I think she was the one that came out to claim that the money found in the accounts of one of the aides to the former President, her husband, belonged to her,” Mohammed said.

“It was not the EFCC that claimed so. She claimed that the money that the guy was being prosecuted for belonged to her. It was only then they later found an extra $5 million in another account.

“It is not as if anybody has gone out to probe Mrs. Jonathan directly or indirectly. Rather Mrs. Jonathan was the one that said ‘that money for which you are accusing Mr. X actually belongs to me.

“So, you cannot start talking of prosecution or persecution.”

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