The N10billion-worth Aridolf Resort Wellness and Spa in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state capital, allegedly owned by Dame Patience Jonathan, the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, may be seized by the Federal Government if she fails to explain how she came about some funds allegedly traced to her accounts. A source told PUNCH that, “This is one of the questions she may have to answer as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission continues investigation into the $20m found in five accounts she has laid claim to.” The hotel, which was inaugurated by Patience Jonathan in April 2015, barely a month before the end of her husband’s tenure has imported state-of-the-art furniture at par with other luxury hotels in developed countries.
The UK business newspaper, The Financial Times, reported on April 21, 2015, that , “The Aridolf Hotel in Yenagoa is an unlikely monument to kitsch on a reclaimed swamp in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta. In the lobby, Louis XIV furniture is accompanied by bowls of plastic fruit, faux Dutch landscapes and a grotesquely gaudy chandelier. The hotel is redolent of the riches on display in a region that for half a century has generated the bulk of Nigeria’s wealth. The Aridolf, which is owned by Patience Jonathan, wife of the former President, is symptomatic of how superficial progress has been in addressing the festering sense of marginalisation in the region, which remains desperately impoverished despite benefiting from a tide of petrodollars in recent years.”
