Human Rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mike Ozekhome has fired back at his counterpart, Femi Falana on whether former President Goodluck Jonathan, is constitutionally qualified to run for president.
While Jonathan has not declared any intention to run, there have been speculations of his plan to join the race for the top job.
Consequently, Ozekhome quoting the constitution on Friday stated that if the former president decides to join the race, he is constitutionally permitted to do so.
“I have carefully read the many arguments of those (I call them antagonists) who believe that Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is disqualified from contesting the 2023 presidential election. According to them, he had already done two terms of 4 years each and will thus be ineligible to contest for a third term. They cite the Fourth Alteration (No 16) Act, which was signed into an Act by President Muhammadu Buhari on the 11th of June, 2018. The section they are relying on is section 137(3) of the said Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution, which provides 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” he stated.
Speaking, Ozekhome stated that “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). They have probably not adverted their minds to the provisions of sections 141 of the Electoral Act, 2010, as amended; and section 285(13) of the same Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the very Alteration 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, with the same ground of being ineligible to contest the said 2015 election, having allegedly been elected for two previous terms of office. The very section 137(3) being relied upon by the antagonists, was signed into law in 2018, three years after Jonathan had left office; and 7 years after he took the oath of President upon Yar’Adua’s demise. Can Jonathan be caught in the web of section 137(3) retrospectively? We shall see that anon”.
The human right lawyer added that only Jonathan and not the present state of the laws in Nigeria, can determine whether to run or not.
“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. So, run, run, run, GEJ, if that is your wish and desire. Goodluck to Goodluck” he added.