Court declares Goodluck Jonathan eligible to run for president

A Yenagoa division of the Federal High Court has declared former President, Goodluck Jonathan eligible to contest the upcoming 2023 presidential election.

Justice Isa Hamma Dashen made the declaration on Friday. He held that Mr Jonathan’s right to vie for the office of president again cannot be stopped by any retroactive law.

Backstory

Mr Andy Solomon and Idibiye Abraham had instituted a suit marked: FHC/YNG/CS/86/2022 against the former President praying the court to prevent him from running for the presidency.

They asked the court to invoke section 137 (1b) and (3) which prohibits a person from taking the oath of office twice whether constitutionally appointed to complete another’s tenure or elected.

Section 137(3) of the constitution states that “A person who was sworn in to complete the term for which another person was elected as President shall not be elected to such office for more than a single term,”

How the judge ruled

Before dismissing the suit, Justice Dashen noted that Mr Jonathan took an oath of office in 2010 without a general election because he had to complete the tenure of late President Musa Yar’Adua.

He said the only time Mr Jonathan took an oath of office through a general election was in 2011 when he was elected.

In giving his judgment, the judge said, “The office of president is different from that of the vice president. And that is how the elections into the two offices are different.

“Jonathan was constitutionally appointed to complete the office of the late President, Umaru Musa Yar’adua. And when Jonathan took the oath of office in 2010 there was no general election in Nigeria.

“The only time he took the oath of office through election was in 2011. And in 2014 Cyriacus Njoku took Jonathan to court and the appeal court found that he was eligible to contest the election.

“And after that judgment, there has been no further appeal on the matter. This simply means that if he had not lost the 2015 election, he would have taken the oath of office twice without any legal impediments.

“The section stating how many times a person can take an oath of office took effect from 2018. And that section cannot be applied retrospectively in this case because for a law to be applied retrospectively, the legislature must state clearly the intention for the section to be applied retrospectively.

”I have taken the pain to go through the law, and there is nowhere the legislature stated clearly that this section should be applied retrospectively.

“Based on these facts, the court holds that the suit seeking to declare the first defendant, Jonathan ineligible to run for the office of president for a second term, is dismissed.”

What you should know

• In April, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana had earlier stated that the former president is not allowed by the constitution to contest in the upcoming 2023 presidential election.
• He said the constitution bars Mr Jonathan from seeking re-election and that his re-election will be a breach of the provision of section 37 of the 1999 constitution.
• He noted that by the virtue of the fourth alteration number 16, Mr Jonathan can only be sworn in twice. He said the fourth alteration provides that a person who was sworn in to complete the term of another person in the office is only entitled to contest once after that.