Mrs. Patience Jonathan withdraws suit against EFCC

The wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Mrs Dame Patience Jonathan, on Monday withdrew a fundamental human rights suit she filed against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over her right to own property.

Justice S. Seidu of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, struck out the suit and imposed a fine of N50,000 on former First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan.

Mrs Jonathan was said to have filed the suit in February 2017 against the EFCC in which she sought an order of the court for the “enforcement of her fundamental rights to own property, fair hearing, human dignity, private and family life and freedom from discrimination”.

The plaintiff through her lawyer , Mr I. A. Adedipe (SAN), had prayed the court to restrain the EFCC from infringing on her right.

Lawyer to 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 yesterday Sammie Somiari who represented Mrs Jonathan addressed the court on a notice of discontinuance of the suit. He said 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 Mrs Jonathan had a right of discontinue the case, but asked for a N500,000 cost for filing processes in response to the suit.

Justice Seidu while striking out the suit, awarded N50,000 cost against the plaintiff.

Andrew Orolua, Abuja.