EFCC wants me to incriminate Patience – GEJ’s aide
- An aide to Goodluck Jonathan accuses the EFCC of victimizing him because of his loyalty to the former president and his family
- Waripamo-Owei Dudafa says the anti-graft agency is desperate to perpetually detain him because he has refused to yield to their demands to implicate the first lady
- However, the EFCC has dismissed Dudafa’s claims as untrue
An aide to former president, Goodluck Jonathan, has alleged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is mounting pressure on him to incriminate the former first lady, Patience Jonathan, over alleged money laundering.
READ ALSO: Corruption: 25 Jonathan’s ex-ministers, aides under probe
Waripamo-Owei Dudafa, who is facing corruption trial by the anti-graft agency made the accusation in a petition to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) claiming he was being deliberately punished by the commission because of his loyalty to the former president and his family, Premium Times report.
Dudafa served as a senior assistant on domestic matters to Jonathan under the last administration.
He said despite meeting the bail conditions granted him by two federal judges, the anti-graft agency was desperate to perpetually detain him because he has refused to yield to their demands to implicate the former first lady.
READ ALSO: Abdullahi Dikko returns money to EFCC, mansion seized
“My only sin is that I have refused to yield to the Commission’s pressure to write false statements to incriminate the former first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan,” said Dudafa in his petition dated November 4.
But in reaction, the EFCC on Monday, November 7, dismissed Dudafa’s claims as untrue.
Wilson Uwujaren, the EFCC Spokesperson said the anti-graft agency does force anybody to do things against their will.
“I don’t know the petition you are talking about but whatever petition there is, the Commission does not force anybody to do anything,” Uwujaren told Premium Times.
The EFCC had arraigned Dudafa and two others in June before Justice Mohammed Idris of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court on a 23-count charge of concealment and retention of proceeds of crime totalling N1.67 billion.
He was also arraigned, alongside two persons and four companies, before Justice Babs Kuewumi of the same federal court for money laundering to the tune of $15 million.
Mrs. Jonathan has since claimed the money belonged to her.
In the case before Mr. Idris, the judge granted Mr. Dudafa bail in the sum of N500 million with three sureties in like sum.
But Dudafa in his petition claimed that despite meeting all the herculean bail conditions as ordered by the two courts, the commission has failed to fulfill its part, by verifying his bail documents with the aim of keeping him in custody in violation of a court order granting him bail.
In a related development, details have emerged how Forbes’ wealthiest African woman Bola Shagaya made suspicious bank transaction to accounts belonging to former Nigeria’s first lady Patience Jonathan.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said Shagaya, a Nigerian business woman has been under the commission’s investigation for about six month.
The commission has also frozen one of Shagaya’s bank account.
Source: Legit.ng
