By Hamilton Nwosa(Head, The New Diplomat’s Business and data tracking desk)
Immediate past Nigerian President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan has reiterated his earlier declaration that he doesn’t have a bank account or a property outside the shores of Nigeria. Dr Jonathan was reacting to reports in international media that the Nigerian government had written to United States banks in a subpoena, asking them to tender bank records reportedly belonging to him and his wife, former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, popularly known as “ Mama P” among her political admirers.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the former president alleged that the Federal government never contacted him before proceeding to ferret or issue subpoenas, stressing that if the Federal authorities had contacted him or his wife, they would have known that no such accounts or properties belonging to either him or his wife exist abroad.
The statement which was signed by Ikechukwu Eze, spokesman to Jonathan said the Jonathans have repeatedly emphasized that their loyalty belongs to Nigeria, and as such they neither have accounts nor properties abroad. The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to international media reports to the effect that the Federal Government of Nigeria has subpoenaed bank records for former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan in the United States of America. We aver that the Federal Government of Nigeria did not contact Dr. Jonathan or his wife before issuing these subpoenas. If they had, we would have advised them of the fact that you cannot subpoena what does not exist. We also remind the public that on March 5, 2014, during the swearing in of new ministers, then President Jonathan said “I am loyal to Nigeria’s economy. I don’t have accounts or property abroad.”
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According to the statement between the intervening period when former president Jonathan made the above declaration that neither he nor his wife have any foreign account or property, nothing has changed to warrant a shift in position.
The Road to Subpoena…
Recall that Bloomberg had exclusively reported earlier on Tuesday that the Federal government of Nigeria was requesting bank documents from 10 United States banks including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co, in what appeared to be a legal move to countermand the contentious subject matter of $9.6 billion P&ID arbitration award. In rough estimates, this translates to about N3. 7 tn, according to Universal Currency Converter data.
The award which came in form of a penalty against Nigeria was reportedly linked to business transactions and deals that may have gone distasteful and awful among those involved in the contentious transaction. The Bloomberg report said the Nigerian government had asked a court in New York for appropriate and legal approval and authorization to subpoena information relating to transactions concerning officials of the Jonathan government, including Jonathan and his wife. This according to the report bears the imprint of authorities ferreting bank documentations involving government officials when the P & ID deal was sealed, and this deal was said to have taken place during the Jonathan administration.
But some concerned Nigerians believe that it is unnecessary to have extended the dragnet thus far with respect to the former President. “ I don’t think Jonathan even owns a flat abroad. He never bothered about such things when he was in office. He counted himself lucky to serve as president, and was more interested in his place in history. There was no need going that far with the Jonathans. Here was a man lucky to be picked as a deputy governor, from where he became governor, and then ultimately president. He is modest man, not ambitious,” a close ally of the former president and a retired Ambassador told The New Diplomat last night.
But government sources in Abuja said the Federal government may have resorted to that move in a bid to reverse the controversial award of $9.6bn awarded in favour of P & ID by trying to establish that the said firm has no locus to be awarded such huge award on grounds of documentary proof of corruption or acts that tend to show gratifications.
Recall that Jonathan was deputy governor, and later governor of Bayelsa State. He later became vice-president to late president Umaru Yar’Adua, and he subsequently became president following the doctrine of necessity invoked shortly after the death of Yar’Adua. He contested and became president in 2011, and served till 2015. Jonathan lost the presidential election in 2015 to the APC whose presidential candidate was General Muhammadu Buhari, a former Head of State who was popular over his administration’s War Against Indiscipline(WAI)
