More Trouble For Patience Jonathan As Court Freezes $5.9m Account Again

The Economic and Financial CrimesCommission has secured a fresh court order to freeze the Skye Bank account of Mrs. Patience Jonathan, wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, with a balance of $5.9m.

The order was granted on Wednesday by Justice Mojisola Olatoregun of the Federal High Court in Lagos.

The development  came barely 24 hours after the court gave  Patience unfettered access to the seized money.

The EFCC had earlier placed a “No Debit Order” on the account late last year pursuant to an interim order by Justice Olatoregun.

But Patience, through her lawyer, Mr. Ifedayo Adedipe (SAN),  challenged the action and succeeded in getting the court to vacate the freezing order on April 6,2017.

The EFCC immediately appealed, filing  an application seeking a stay of execution of the freezing order pending the outcome of the appeal.

But  the case took a dramatic twist on Tuesday as  counsel for the EFCC, Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, appeared before Justice Olatoregun, saying the commission had changed its mind about challenging the freezing order and applied to withdraw the application to stay the execution of the unfreezing order.

Consequently, the judge on Tuesday struck out the application for stay of execution, giving Patience unfettered access to the money.

The judge also granted an application by counsel for Skye Bank, Mr. Lanre Ogunlesi (SAN), that the Form 48 and Form 49 filed against his client by Patience to cite the bank for contempt should be struck out.

However, on Wednesday,  Oyedepo reappeared before the judge with a new ex parte application to freeze Patience’s account afresh.

This report first appeared in Punch Newspaper