The wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience Jonathan, has been ordered by the Federal High Court in Rivers State, on Monday to pay N50, 000 to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission after she withdrew her suit.
According to The PUNCH, Patience had in February sued the EFCC for the alleged breach of her fundamental human rights.
She asked Justice Saliu Seidu to declare that the freezing of her $20m bank accounts and those of her relatives by the anti-graft agency as a gross violation of her rights to fair hearing and property ownership.
Mrs Jonathan, through her counsel, I. A. Adedipe (SAN),had also requested that the court ruled that the ransacking of her family property by the officials of the EFCC was illegal and also demanded the payment of N2bn in damages.
Counsel for the EFCC, Kayode Oni, faulted Mrs Jonathan on her prayers before the court, arguing that her suit was “an abuse of court process.”
At the resumed hearing of the matter on Monday, Sammie Somiari who represented Mrs Jonathan addressed the court on a notice of discontinuance of the suit, saying that he had “an instruction of his client to discontinue the matter.”
He said that an application had been filed before the court to that effect.
In response, Oni submitted that Patience had a right of discontinue the case, but pressed for a charge of N500,000 as the cost of filing processes in response to the suit.
Justice Seidu refused to grant the EFCC’s N500,000 request as he struck out the suit and awarded N50,000 cost against the plaintiff.
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