Jonathan qualified to run in 2023, Ozekhome faults Falana's claim

A Senior Advocate of Nigerian (SAN), Mike Ozekhome, has disagreed with the position of his learned colleague, Femi Falana, SAN, over the eligibility of former President Goodluck Jonathan, to contest for presidency in 2023.

Pulse in an earlier report had quoted Falana as saying that Section 137(3) of the Nigerian constitution disqualifies Jonathan from running for the office of the president.

Falana argued that the quoted Section prescribed that no elected Nigerian president shall spend more than two terms of eight years cumulatively in office.

Going by the Senior lawyer's interpretation, having previously spent roughly over five years as Nigeria's president, Jonathan would be running foul of the constitution if he contests and wins another term in 2023.

Ozekhome disagrees

Expressing a contrary view to that of his SAN colleague, Rights activist, Ozekhome, in a piece obtained by a Punch correspondent argued that it would be “grossly unfair” to deny the former president the right to contest again in 2023 when he hasn't been disqualified by the nations' extant laws and court decisions.

“The truth of the matter is that the antagonists of Jonathan running in 2023, in their strange line of argument, are mainly relying on the above section 137(3),” Ozekhome noted.

“They have probably not averted 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 frontally 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.

“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 hominem 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,” the SAN explained.

There has been a widespread speculation that Jonathan may contest the next presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Earlier in the week, some youths besieged the Abuja residence of the former president to mount pressure on him to join the APC ahead of the general elections in 2023.

The youths, operating under the aegis of Youths Network for Nigeria Union (YNNU) gave Jonathan a seven-day ultimatum to obtain the APC membership card at his Otuoke Ward.