Nigeria: $1M money laundering case tied to ex-1st lady

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA)- Four firms linked to Nigeria’s most recent first lady have pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering involving $15 million, a sum the government's anti-corruption agency insists were the ill-gotten gains of corruption.

The firms -- Pluto Property and Investment, Seagate Property Development and Investment, Trans Ocean Property and Investment, and Avalon Global Property Development -- admitted to laundering the funds on behalf of former first lady Patience Jonathan at a hearing before a federal high court in Lagos late Thursday.

The companies were arraigned alongside an aide to the former first lady, Waripamo-Owei Emmanuel Dudafa; another presidential aide, Amajuoyi Azubuike Briggs; and a top bank official, Adedamola Bolodeoku. Unlike the firms, the three individuals pled not guilty to corruption charges.

Patience Jonathan -- the wife of Goodluck Jonathan, president in 2010-2015 -- had owned up to directing Dudafa to open different bank accounts for her and that the money in them belongs to her. She also filed a suit urging the court to compel the anti-graft agency to unfreeze the accounts, but the agency insists she must first prove the money did not come from corrupt sources.

In a statement Friday, Mrs. Jonathan claimed that the agency had engineered the guilty pleas by hiring mercenaries to masquerade as officials at the firms in whose names Dudafa opened the accounts.

“This is a clear evidence of the desperation of the prosecution to pull down the former first lady and confiscate her hard-earned money,” her media aide Chima Osuji said in a statement.

The case has been adjourned to Sept. 27 for further hearings.