A woman who stopped working for former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, shortly after getting married in 2018 is among the 15 domestic staff rotting in Bayelsa State prison since 2019 over a missing jewellery claim that has never been proven in court, SaharaReporters can report.
SaharaReporters exclusively gathered that the woman, Tamunosiki Achese, a former Personal Assistant to Mrs. Jonathan, had left her position before the controversial theft took place.
Yet, she was rounded up and locked away, along with others, in what sources close to the case described as a vindictive act by the former First Lady.
“Tamunosiki was her PA. She got married some months before the incident happened and she was no longer working with her,” a source close to the former first lady told SaharaReporters.
“But because she left after marriage, Patience Jonathan decided to arrest her,” the source said.
The source added, “She (Patience Jonathan) said she would use all her power to make sure Tamunosiki remains in jail. She wasn’t even staying in Bayelsa anymore — she had moved to Okrika. She left in 2018 and the jewellery went missing in 2019.”
This revelation comes days after SaharaReporters obtained a gut-wrenching video of a 90-year-old woman begging Patience Jonathan to free her daughter, Deborah Erema, who has been detained for over five years without trial.
In the heartbreaking footage, the frail old woman, visibly starving and neglected, wept profusely as she pleaded for her daughter’s release.
“Nobody go give me food, nah only her dey give me. I don’t have anybody. I just go beg beg. I am now a beggar. See me as I dey now,” she cried. “Please release my daughter, make she go find food for me. If I die now, who go bury me. Nah only her I get.”
SaharaReporters can confirm that Deborah Erema and 14 others, including Tamunosiki Achese, Williams Alami, Vincent Olabiyi, Ebuka Cosmos, and others, have been languishing in detention since 2019 — without any conviction or substantial trial.
According to insiders, some of the detainees became targets simply because they refused to be part of a plot to implicate others.
“As for Vincent Olabiyi and Ebuka Cosmos, she asked them to stand as false witnesses against others and they refused. That was why they were arrested too,” the source added. “They’ve also spent almost six years in prison for that.”
The list of detainees includes John Dashe, Tamunokuro Abaku, Sahabi Lima, Emmanuel Aginwa, Precious Kingsley, Salomi Wareboka, Sunday Reginald, Boma Oba, Vivian Golden, and Emeka Benson.
SaharaReporters learnt that their arrests followed allegations by Patience Jonathan that some of her jewellery was stolen.
© SaharaReporters
