2015 polls: Appeal court clears Jonathan to contest presidential poll

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has held that President Goodluck Jonathan is eligible to contest in the 2015 presidential election for his second tenure as president. The court dismissed an appeal challenging the eligibility of President Jonathan to contest the March 28, 2015 presidential election. In a unanimous judgment delivered on Tuesday, the appellate court said that the president was qualified to seek for another term of office having not participated in the two previous elections for the office of the president as prescribed by law.

Justice Abubakar Yahaya, who delivered the lead judgment held that the oath of office taken by Jonathan on May 6, 2010 to complete the tenure of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was not on account of election required by law but by operations of the constitution. In specific terms, the Court of Appeal held that Jonathan’s participation in the 2007 election was in the vice presidential capacity and that the oath he took on May 29, 2007 was for the office of vice president while the late Yar’Adua took oath of the president. Justice Yahaya held that for anybody to be said to have been in office of president for two terms in line with provisions of section 135, he must have been nominated by a political party twice, stood and won elections twice and took oath of office in the capacity of the president twice.

The appellate court held that on May 6, 2010 when Jonathan took oath of office to complete the tenure of his late boss, there was no nomination by any political party, no voting by Nigerians but got to the office on the operations of the constitution. A chieftain of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Cyriacus Njoku, had dragged Jonathan before an Abuja High Court, seeking his disqualification on account of taking oath of office for the same office in 2010 and 2011. A panel of five justices of the appellate court, headed by Justice Abubakar Yahaya, in a unanimous judgment delivered held that the appellant’s suit was speculative and imaginary. The court held that President Jonathan is qualified to contest the office of the president of the country in the forth coming elections. Justice Yahaya said President Jonathan’s second term tenure will not end on May 29, 2015 because his first tenure of office started in 2011, when he took the oath of office and allegiance as an elected president of the country.

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