Ex-first lady's aide says EFCC hired agents to plead guilty

According to a report by Vanguard Newspaper, Osuji alleged that the four defendants, who represented companies alleged to have laundered money into the Skye Bank accounts of the ex-First lady were unknown and probably arranged by the EFCC..

“This is a clear evidence of the desperation of the prosecution to pull down the former First Lady and confiscate her hard-earned money,” he began.

Continuing, Osuji said: “It is an irony. it was the former first lady, who went to court for the repatriation of her confiscated money when she realised that the EFCC and its co-travellers were playing politics with this issue after she had come out publicly to say that the said money belongs to her and that she has all evidence to prove the sources of her money. Up till this very moment, EFCC has refused to interrogate or invite her for EFCC boss Magu and Patience Jonathan questioning.

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“The biggest twist in court on Thursday was that the fourth to seventh defendants pleaded guilty to all the 15-count charges. It is clear that these unknown faces were agents of the EFCC, who have been stage-managed and tutored to come to court to complicate the case as a strategy to confiscate her money,” he said.

Denying allegations that the former First lady ever receiving any monies from any unknown sources into her accounts and that the accounts, Osuji said, “Mrs Jonathan is not a Director, shareholder, promoter and/or participant in any of the four companies now under trial, and that she was the sole signatory to all the said accounts, contrary to the fabrication that she used her driver and cook as proxies”.

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Osuji concluded saying Patience Jonathan's Skybe Bank accounts were opened in order to facilitate her travel overseas particularly for medical treatment, sundry purchase for herself and her late mother Mrs. Charity Oba.