We have no case against Patience Jonathan – EFCC

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs Farida Waziri, on Wednesday, debunked claims that the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan, was under any form of investigation by the anti-graft agency.

Waziri made this clarification while receiving representatives of the Women Empowering and Enriching Lives (WEEL), an Abuja-based Non-Governmental Organisation, who paid her a courtesy visit at the EFCC’s corporate headquarters in Abuja.

The clarification is coming on the heels of renewed media reports that the anti-graft agency had, on September 11, 2006, seized $13.5 million from Mrs Jonathan, when her husband, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, was then the governor of Bayelsa State.

According to Waziri, the visit of the NGO provided her the opportunity to respond to the many enquiries she had been getting on the alleged pending case against Mrs Jonathan.

“Let me state clearly that the commission will not allow itself to be used to drag innocent people’s names into crimes, cases or allegations they know nothing about. In this particular case, I have read my predecessor who said in media interviews in September 2010 that Mrs Jonathan was not in any way involved in any case of money laundering investigated by the EFCC under him. I have thereafter checked our records and cannot find any case of money laundering against Mrs Jonathan or the president himself. So, each time I get an enquiry or read about this, I often wonder where this is coming from,”the EFCC boss declared.