…As Venezuela in chaos after massive power outage, Maduro’s regime blames Marco Rubio***

The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed an order of interim forfeiture made by the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court in respect of $8.4m linked to the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Mrs. Patience Jonathan.

The five-man bench of the apex court led by Justice Dattijo Muhammad, in a unanimous judgment, dismissed the ex-First Lady’s appeal and directed her to return to the Federal High Court to show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.

The court also rejected her prayer to strike down the provisions of Section 17 of the Advanced Fee Fraud Act and other Fraud related offences Act, which was relied on by the Federal High Court to issue the order of interim forfeiture.

Upholding the decision of the Court of Appeal in Lagos, which had affirmed the Federal High Court’s interim order, Justice Kumai Aka’ahs, in the lead judgment of the apex court on Friday, held, “I do not find any reason to interfere with the decision of the lower court.”

Justice Aka’ahs added, “Appellant is to go back to the trial court (the Federal High Court) to show cause why the interim order should not be made permanent.”

The lead judgment was read on behalf of Justice Aka’ahs by Justice Ejembi Eko, also a member of the panel.

Other members of the five-man panel, Justices Muhammad, John Okoro, Eko, and Sidi Bage, agreed with Justice Aka’ahs’ lead judgment.

The EFCC had, last year, approached the Federal High Court in Lagos with an ex parte application seeking the forfeiture of the sum of $8,435,788.84 and other various sums in various bank accounts linked to the wife of the former president.

The anti-graft agency, in its application anchored on Section 17 of AFFA, had urged the court to grant an order of interim forfeiture of the funds which they said were suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities.

Patience Jonathan and others, including some organisations, were joined in the said ex parte application as respondents.

Justice Mojisola Olatoregun of the Federal High Court in Lagos had, on April 20, 2018 granted the ex parte order.

She also ordered the EFCC to publish the court’s order in any major national newspaper to enable the respondents or anyone interested in the funds to appear before the court to show cause within 14 days why the final order of forfeiture of the said funds should not be made in favour of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Instead of appearing before the court to show cause as directed by the court, she had filed an appeal before the Court of Appeal to challenge the competence of the ex parte application filed by the EFCC to request the order of interim forfeiture.

She also in her appeal challenged the validity of the order made by the trial court and the constitutionality of section 17 of AFFA.

The Court of Appeal in Lagos dismissed her appeal prompting her to approach the Supreme Court to rule in her favour.

Arguing her appeal on December 12, 2018, her lead counsel, Mr. Ifedayo Adedipe (SAN), urged the Supreme Court to quash section 17 of AFFA which he contended negated the principles of fair hearing and presumption of innocence prescribed in the Constitution.

He said section 17 of AFFA which allowed assets to be seized from an individual without conviction, a hearing or a criminal charge whether temporarily or permanently was unconstitutional.

He also said the ex parte application which the trial court granted failed to disclose the alleged “unlawful activities”, the funds were linked to.

Responding, EFCC’s lawyer, Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, said the appellant’s appeal was based on a misconception about the provision of section 17 of AFFA.

He said there was nothing unconstitutional about the said provision which he said provides an opportunity to the affected person to be heard on the temporarily forfeited assets.

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the appeal and upheld the decisions of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.

In the meantime, Venezuela plunged into darkness Thursday evening following one of the largest power outages in years, spreading chaos in an already disrupted country facing political turmoil.

The blackout began as most commuters were leaving work for home, hitting 22 out of 23 Venezuelan states, including the capital Caracas that until now managed to avoid the consequences of collapsing infrastructure and frequent outages.

Thousands of commuters had to scramble to find a way back home as subway service stopped operating, while roads came to a standstill due to confusion over blackened stoplights.

The blackout forced hospital nurses to monitor patients, including premature babies in incubators, while holding candles.

Venezuela’s disputed president Nicolas Maduro, meanwhile, blamed the blackout as an “electrical war” perpetrated by the United States without providing any proof, the latest sign of a dictator who’s losing the grip over the country.

Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez echoed Maduro and said right-wing extremists are causing mayhem in the country at the behest of Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a claim mocked by the senator on Twitter.

“My apologies to people of Venezuela,” he wrote in a tweet. “I must have pressed the wrong thing on the ‘electronic attack’ app I downloaded from Apple. My bad.”

Rodriguez urged people to be patient and promised to restore power within the hours of the blackout. Yet the blackout continued into early Friday morning, with Venezuelans opening their windows and banging pots and pans in the dark as a protest against the government, while some also cursed at Maduro.

The outage comes amid political turmoil in Venezuela, with Maduro facing a challenge for legitimacy from opposition leader Juan Guaido, the head of congress who was recognized as the legitimate leader of the country by the U.S. and about 50 countries around the world.

Guaido attacked the socialist regime for the blackout on social media.

“How do you tell a mom who needs to cook, an ill person who depends on a machine, a worker who should be laboring that we are in a powerful country without electricity?” he wrote, using the hashtag #SinLuz, meaning without light. “Venezuela is clear that the light will return with the end of usurpation.”

The shortage of goods and services has become a daily reality for Venezuelans, with many lacking food and basic medical supplies due to the failing socialist economy that made the country’s currency worthless.

The electrical system – once the envy of Latin America – has suffered years of mismanagement that was exacerbated amid dwindling financial resources that made it difficult for the government to continue subsidize the people’s electricity bills.

Punch with additional report from Fox News