A heartbreaking video obtained by SaharaReporters shows a frail 90-year-old woman tearfully pleading with former First Lady Patience Jonathan to release her daughter, Deborah Erema, who has been detained without trial for more than five years
Visibly weak and distressed, the elderly woman cried as she spoke of her hunger, neglect, and complete isolation.
“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 begger. See me as I dey now,” she said in the emotional video.
“Please release my daughter, make she go find food for me. Nah she dey give me food. I don beg tire. I don tire. Make una leave my pikin for me. If I die now, who go bury me. Nah only her I get.”
Deborah Erema was arrested in 2019 along with 14 others after they were accused of stealing jewelry belonging to Dame Patience Jonathan, wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan. The accused, mostly domestic staff, have remained in detention since then without a single conviction.
The list of detainees includes Williams Alami, Vincent Olabiyi, Ebuka Cosmos, John Dashe, Tamunokuro Abaku, Sahabi Lima, Emmanuel Aginwa, Precious Kingsley, Tamunosiki Achese, Salomi Wareboka, Sunday Reginald, Boma Oba, Vivian Golden, and Emeka Benson.
All of them have been cut off from their families and livelihoods, caught in legal limbo over allegations that have yet to be proven in court.
Deborah’s suffering has deepened with personal tragedy. Her own daughter—who had been caring for Deborah’s aging mother and raising her children as a single parent—recently died after a prolonged illness.
“She had so much to carry. She was a single mother with two or three kids. The burden of taking care of the children, her sick grandmother, and worrying about her mother in prison was just too much,” a source told SaharaReporters.
- “She eventually fell ill and died. It was a slow, painful death, worsened by the hopelessness of it all.”
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Jonathan is as wicked as abacha and co. Shame on him