The Federal High Court in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, has held that former President Goodluck Jonathan can run for President in 2023.
The judge, Isa Dashen, while delivering a judgment on Friday, held that Jonathan’s right to vie for the presidency a second time cannot be stopped by any retroactive law.
There have been intense political debates over Jonathan’s eligibility to run for the presidency a second time, after he was defeated at the polls in 2015 by the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari, when Jonathan sought to be reelected.
Joining the debate in April, human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, said the former president cannot contest in the 2023 presidential election, citing constitutional provisions barring him from seeking re-election.
Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) said through a statement in response to growing calls on Jonathan to throw his hat into the ring ahead of the 2023 election.
He said Jonathan, who was president between 2010 and 2015, would breach constitutional limits of two terms of eight years if he runs for the presidency and wins again.
Falana recalled that Jonathan became the President in 2010 following the sudden death of President Umaru Yar’Adua, and later contested and won the 2011 presidential election.
Jonathan spent five years in office as president, which would make it nine years in office if he contests and wins again, Falana argued.
“Dr. Jonathan is disqualified from contesting the 2023 presidential election. The reason is that if he wins the election he will spend an additional term of four years.
“It means that he would spend a cumulative period of nine years as President of Nigeria in utter breach of Section 137 of the Constitution which provides for a maximum two terms of eight years,” Falana said.
The senior lawyer also said that by virtue of section 137 (3) of the Nigerian constitution, Jonathan cannot seek a re-election to the office of the president having completed the tenure of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and sworn-in again for a full four-year term in 2011 upon winning the presidential election in his own name.
“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,” the section 137(3) of the constitution cited by Falana reads.
The National Assembly had introduced the constitutional provision via the Fourth Alteration No 16 Act 2017 which President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law on June 4, 2018.
Falana faulted the argument that the constitutional provision signed into law in 2018 cannot retroactively apply to Jonathan who had left office after his failed reelection bid in 2015.
Jonathan lost the keenly contested election to Buhari.
Faulting the argument that Jonathan is exempted from the effect of section 137 (3) of the Nigerian constitution, Falana referenced the failed bid of former governor of Oyo State, Rasheed Ladoja, to seek an extension of his tenure to cover for the time he was kept out of office through illegal impeachment.
Falana recalled that the Supreme Court rejected Ladoja’s prayer on the grounds that a governor was only entitled to spend a maximum period of eight years or less and not more than 8 years.
He said: “Some people have said that the amendment is not retrospective and therefore cannot apply to Dr. Jonathan.
“Assuming without conceding that the amendment is not retrospective it is submitted that under the current Constitution a president or governor cannot spend more that two terms of eight years.
“In other words, the Constitution will not allow anyone to be in office for more than a cumulative period of eight years.
“In Marwa v. Nyako (2012) 6 NWLR (Pt.1296) 199 at 387 the Supreme Court stated that Section 180 (1) and (2)(a) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has prescribed a single term of 4 years and if a second term, another period of 4 years and not a day longer.
“In the case of Gov. Ladoja v INEC (2008)40 WRN 1 the Supreme Court rejected the prayer of Governor Ladoja for 11 months’ extension to cover the period he was kept out of office through illegal impeachment,” he said.