No law stops Jonathan from contesting – Ozekhome
Mike Ozekhome, human rights lawyer, says former President Goodluck Jonathan is eligible to contest for president in 2023.
His opinion contradicts that of Femi Falana, a senior advocate, who argues that the former president is constitutionally barred by Section 137 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
Falana argues that Jonathan, having completed the tenure of former president Umaru Yar’Adua and run a consecutive term in which he was elected president, cannot be on the ballot for the same office again.
Ozekhome however disagrees in his legal opinion released on Friday.
“The truth of the matter is that the antagonists of Jonathan running in 2022, in their strange line of argument, are mainly relying on the above section 137(3),” Ozekhome said.
“They have probably not adverted their minds to sections 141 of the Electoral Act, 2010, as amended, and section 285(13) of the same fourth alteration to the 1999 constitution, as amended, which they are relying on.
“More revealing is that these antagonists are probably not aware of an extant and subsisting court of appeal decision where Jonathan was frontallly confronted and challenged before the 2015 presidential election, on the same ground of being ineligible to contest the said 2015 election, having allegedly been elected for two previous terms of office.
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“The section 137(3) being relied upon by the antagonists was signed into law in 2018, three years after Jonathan had left office. Can he be caught in its web retrospectively?
“It is clear that those deliberately misinterpreting the clear position of the law may be baying for Jonathan’s blood, possibly as a potential candidate who may subvert the chances of their preferred candidates.
“I do not view issues from such a narrow ad homine prism and blurred binoculars. It will be grossly unfair, unconstitutional, unconscionable and inequitable to deny Jonathan of the right to contest the 2023 presidential election when our extant laws and appellate court decisions permit him to.
“The question of whether Jonathan really needs to subject his glittering and internationally acclaimed reputation and credentials to the muddy waters of a fresh competition with persons, some of whom were his personal appointees as president, is another matter altogether.
“Only him, and not the present state of the laws in Nigeria, can answer that question and decide his own fate. But, as regards his eligibility to contest, Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan is pre-eminently constitutionally, morally and legally qualified to contest the 2023 presidential election.”
