NewsRescue
Uncovered documents from the top US think-tank, the Council of Foreign Relations, CFR detail that the wife of the president of Nigeria, Patience Jonathan has been known as the “greediest person in Bayelsa state.” In not too kind terms, the report, “THE CENTER FOR PREVENTIVE ACTION: Nigeria Elections and Continuing Challenges” by Robert I. Rotberg noted the indictment of Patience Jonathan by the Economic and Financial Crimes Comission, EFCC, while she was the Bayelsa first lady, in the looting and laundering of over $1.3 million. [Nigeria Criminal Database: Patience Jonathan-$13,650,000.00]
The President himself did not go without note in the report which described him as a selection of President Obasanjo who was notably “compromised.” The report stated that the PDP and Nigeria as a whole had hoped for better candidates than the ailing, now late Yar’Adua and the “compromised” person of Jonathan.
Patience was characterized as not only being the greediest person in the entire state, but known for being extremely “cruel.”
The excerpt from the report follows:
Yar’Adua, with a nod toward national unity and conscious also of continued
violence in the petroleum-producing region of the Niger Delta, and the PDP chose
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to be the vice presidential candidate on the PDP ticket.
A fifty-five-year-old Christian Ijaw, Jonathan has governed Bayelsa State only since the end of
2005. Previously an unremarkable deputy governor, he replaced the discredited Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha after the latter was charged with money laundering in Britain, jumped
bail, returned to Nigeria dressed as a woman, and was subsequently impeached by the
state assembly. In 2006, Jonathan’s wife was indicted by the national EFCC for money
laundering and related offenses. Patience Jonathan, Goodluck Jonathan’s wife, is
considered by some to be the “greediest person in Bayelsa State.” 3
She is also seen as cruel; she ordered the fiancée of a prominent Ijaw leader
thrown in a detention center and turned down all pleas to have her released.
More positively, she established a foundation to improve the lives of
the people in her state and says working for the women of the
state is her top priority. Yar’Adua and Jonathan comprise a remarkably weak and
potentially compromised pair of candidates. Rank-and-file PDP members had hoped for
better, as had the country.
*3 International Herald Tribune, September 11, 2006; Vanguard (Lagos), March 31, 2006.
Council of Foreign Relations PDF report
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