Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s wife Patience has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of victimising her.
She urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call EFCC Chairman Ibrahim Magu to order.
A statement by her spokesperson Belema Meshack-Hart accused Magu of trying to destroy her family.
She alleged that she was being investigated for her role in the 2015 election and for supporting her husband.
“We believe that she is being systematically persecuted and punished because of her unflinching support for her husband during the 2015 elections,” the statement said.
It added: “One thing is clear: No matter what they do to Mrs. Jonathan, she will continue to stand by her husband, the father of her children, even if it means paying the supreme price with her life.”
Mrs. Jonathan is being investigated by the EFCC for allegations of fraud and money laundering running into billions of naira.
In April, the High Court in Lagos ordered the temporary forfeiture of $5.8 million and N2.4 billion in her accounts, which she is contesting.
The anti-graft agency has also linked several properties at home and abroad to Mrs. Jonathan, many of them at various stages of investigation.
Mrs. Jonathan said: “President Muhammadu Buhari should be reminded that his wife also supported him in all the elections he contested against her husband, former President Jonathan, but Dr. Jonathan did not at any point in time carry out personal vendetta or go after Buhari’s wife.
“That is the standard practice in all democracies around the world. For instance, Michelle Obama campaigned vigorously for her husband’s party during their last Presidential election, but we are yet to see President Donald Trump move against her. One thing is clear: No matter what they do to Mrs. Jonathan, she will continue to stand by her husband, the father of her children, even if it means paying the supreme price with her life,” she said.
She accused Magu of desecrating the image of the Presidency, saying “it would be good to bring him back to the path of sanity and reason”.
Mrs. Jonathan described herself as the most vilified first lady in the history of Nigeria.
She said it had gotten to the extent where all the “magnificent edifices in Abuja, Yenagoa or Port Harcourt” were linked to her.
The statement also reads:”We wish to place it on record that in the history of this country, no wife of any President had been so far investigated in such flagrantly vindictive and disgraceful manner, as has been the fate of Mrs. Jonathan, in the hands of Magu’s EFCC.”
“As a tradition, every first lady in this country has had one pet project or the other, with which they sought to intervene in the lives of the less privileged. Mrs. Jonathan started her NGO in Bayelsa State 11 years ago when her husband was the Governor of the State.
“With it, she has, over the years, touched the lives of many Nigerians in different ways. It is then surprising that while other First ladies and their pet projects were left alone, it is only her activities and that of her NGOs that are being subjected to indefinite probe and microscopic scrutiny by the Buhari administration.
“In a method that clearly bears out the axiom of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it, Magu’s EFCC had maliciously linked Mrs. Jonathan to all kinds of fake possessions and properties around the country, including the Local Content Office in Yenagoa which is an arm of NNPC, Shoprite Complex, Nigerian Customs Guest House and Park View Hotel, both in Port Harcourt, as well as the residence of her neighbour who is a serving senator.
“It has now come to a point where all the magnificent edifices in Abuja, Yenagoa or Port Harcourt are presented to the media as belonging to Mrs. Patience Jonathan. Not done, they also accuse her of owning several plots of land in many cities across the country, including places she has never visited. The most astonishing of all is that her close relatives are viciously being victimized, as their personal properties are also being investigated.
“It is either the EFCC is now led by people who cannot conduct proper investigations, or they are deliberately feeding the public with false information, in line with their sinister script to embarrass and browbeat the former first family.”
