I Collected Several Suitcases Filled With Money For Jonathan From Onne Adegbe – Ex Aide Confesses

Jonathan Told Me To Receive Several Suitcases Filled With Money From Onne Adegbe & Keep Them In His Study Room – Former GEJ Aide Confesses

Dr. Waripamo-Owei Dudafa, former Special Assistant to former President Goodluck Jonathan said today he was not aware that over five suitcases given to him by former President Jonathan’s Aide De Camp, Onne Adegbe, contained cash.

Dudafa denied that the suitcases were 10 in number, but admitted they were more than five.

He was testifying during hearing in former First Lady, Patience Jonathan’s suit before Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos.

Mrs. Jonathan was seeking to unfreeze her accounts with $15.5million.

Counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, asked Dudafa during further cross examination to confirm that Adegbe handed some bags from the President to him.

Dudafa said: “It is part of my duties to receive gifts on behalf of the former President and his wife.”

When Oyedepo told him that the suitcases were 10, the witness said: “They were not 10. I think they were about five.”

Responding to a question, Dudafa said: “The bags were heavy, but I don’t know the contents.”

When it was suggested to him that the bags contained money, he said: “Nobody told me it was money.”

On how he came about the bags, he said: “The President called me and said the ADC would bring bags, and that I should keep them in his study downstairs. When the President returned, I handed the key to him.”

Dudafa said he received “several of such bags” on the President’s behalf.

Oyedepo asked: “Will it surprise you to know that there was money in the bags?”

Dudafa responded: “I don’t know what were in the bags. The President is still alive. He can explain.”

Dudafa had earlier testified that Mrs. Jonathan maintained personal accounts in various financial institutions, and that she had such accounts before becoming First Lady.

He admitted instructing stewards in the State House to pay dollars into Mrs. Jonathan’s accounts.

Asked who gave the money to the stewards, he said: “Sometimes other presidential domestic aides hand over the money. At other times I relay such instructions as given.”

Mrs. Jonathan sued the EFCC, Skye Bank Plc and three companies – Pluto Property and Investment Company Ltd, Seagate Property Development and Investment Company Ltd and Trans Ocean Property and Investment Company Ltd.

She is praying for an order restraining the defendants from tampering with her funds in the companies’ accounts domiciled in Skye Bank.[NAN]