• Proxies and business associates develop cold feet as EFCC swoops on former first lady
• Why they are planning to approach the EFCC to negotiate ‘soft landing’
Those who summon the storm must never cringe from a storm cloud. But having beckoned the storm, Patience Jonathan cringes from its ravage like a spaniel fleeing the gusts of a snowstorm. While her husband, Goodluck Jonathan, was President, Patience wore chaos like a crown and stirred the hornet’s nest with reckless abandon. She elevated strife and cut-throat politics from an eyesore to an art form. But no sooner did her husband lose his re-election bid than her impotence dawn on her. Patience is not so powerful and influential after all. Not with the incumbent government anyway. Little wonder she is on the radar of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Recently, the EFCC froze Patience Jonathan’s personal bank account. Titled ‘Patience Ibifaka Jonathan,’ the account which is domiciled in Skye Bank Plc with a balance of $5million was frozen by the EFCC. The EFCC allegedly froze the account as a result of the prima facie case established against the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s wife.
Earlier, anti-graft agency froze four company accounts owned by the former First Lady in Skye Bank with a balance of $15,591,700. Following claims that she owns the four companies’ accounts in Skye Bank with a balance of $15,591,700, the anti-graft body reportedly said it had been able to establish that the monies were proceeds of crime, hence the need to freeze her personal account.
But while the spat between the EFCC and the former First Lady generates uproar, several businessmen and women who had done business with her in the past have developed cold feet. Many of them are reportedly planning to approach the EFCC and give themselves up to the anti-graft agency in pursuit of a ‘soft landing.’ The Capital findings revealed that many of them who are still doing business with her have become very jittery and worried that they might get arrested by the EFCC. This is because they serve as proxies for many of her businesses and yet undiscovered bank accounts.
Many of Patience Jonathan’s associates serve as fronts for her; they are the faces identified with many of her undeclared businesses and bank accounts thus in the wake of the EFCC’s prosecution of their boss and benefactress, they are worried that their bank accounts too would be frozen by the EFCC and while they are picked up for interrogation.
This would no doubt generate undue publicity for too many of Patience Jonathan’s affected associates, many of whom lack the braggadocio to stand up to the EFCC as she is currently doing. They would also suffer very bad press and their businesses and social standing would be severely affected, argued a very close source to the parties involved.
Hence while the former First Lady issues a two-week ultimatum to the EFCC to unfreeze her accounts, many of her associates are scurrying from pillar to post to protect themselves and save their hides should things get out of hand and the EFCC beams its anti-corruption searchlight on them.
These are indeed the worst of times for Patience Jonathan. It would be recalled that she held court and paraded herself like an empress while her husband was Nigeria’s most powerful and influential figure. Soon she evolved to become the most powerful voice and conspicuous face of her husband’s administration often to the detriment of her husband and former ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
In the wake of her husband’s reelection campaign, Patience carelessly made several hate speeches, attacking the personalities of major opposition party leaders, particularly incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, whom she identified as “brain-dead” in a highly controversial hate-speech she made against him and his All Progressives Congress (APC) party, while she campaigned for her husband’s reelection.
Her ongoing prosecution by the EFCC has been described as President Buhari’s payback for her indecent attacks against him prior to the March 23 presidential elections. Will she survive this onslaught against her? Or will she eventually bite the dust and eat a humble pie like the Olisa Metuhs and Femi Fani-Kayodes? Time will tell.
