• Mischief makers allege former first lady is on EFCC watch list
• Political circuit agog with news of her imminent prosecution
If Patience Jonathan’s detractors have their way, they will visit upon her a vast, vivid wilderness of pain, like the misery that afflicts the treacherous soon after he/she is sentenced to a life behind bars. They will convey her, gagged and bound, and haul her into a dungeon, far from the theatrics and politics of the incumbent government’s anti-corruption fight. Men and women nursing deep-seated hatred for the former Nigerian first lady and wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, earnestly await her arrest and prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
According to them, the burden of evidence against the former first lady is weighty enough to detain and prosecute her. Dame Patience, they alleged, is complicit in the monumental fraud that rocked her husband’s administration. They further alleged that plans are in the offing by the EFCC to invite the former first lady for interrogation and detention.
According to them, President Muhammadu Buhari has authorised the EFCC to launch an inquiry into the role Dame Patience played in several financial scams that characterised her husband’s administration.
There is no gainsaying the former first lady had always being a newsmaker. Her garrulous personality oftentimes elicits awe and outright shock among her fans and greatest critics.
Dame Patience has sparked pretty much same interest as her husband, during and even after the latter’s tenure as President, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
While her husband campaigned for re-election, she played a crucial role in attracting support for him particularly among the nation’s women groups.
Before and after her husband lost his re-election bid, Dame Patience had been on the receiving end of several uncomplimentary news and rumours. For instance, she had been accused of owning a very large and expensive mansion in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Pictures of her alleged mansion flooded the internet soon after the rumour broke out. Earlier, rabble-rousers went to town claiming the former first lady was humiliated by airport security at the Port Harcourt airport.
The recent story which went viral suggests that Patience Jonathan suffered in the hands of the airport security operatives and aviation officials as she was prevented from entering the VIP lounge of the airport. An alleged eyewitness narrated the incident, saying that the security insisted that they were acting on orders from Abuja.
As you read, the news making rounds is that President Buhari has deployed the EFCC to hound, harass and prosecute the former first lady over certain shady transactions in which she was found complicit.
But most of the rumours have been dismissed by the former first lady’s loyalists and die-hard apologists as the figments of imagination of mischievous people desperately trying to tarnish the image of the respectable former first lady.
Born in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Dame Patience earned her school certificate in 1976, and passed the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) in 1980. In 1989, she obtained the National Certificate of Education (NCE) in Mathematics and Biology from the Rivers State College of Arts and Science, Port Harcourt. She then proceeded to the University of Port Harcourt and studied for a B.Ed in Biology and Psychology. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Portharcourt.
