Former President Goodluck Jonathan who is considering joining the All Progressives Congress to run for President is set to face a legal battle in the coming days, The PUNCH has learnt.

This is just as the Vice Chairman/Director of Public Affairs, Igbo Leadership Development Foundation, Dr. Law Mefor, says his group will be going to court to challenge Jonathan should he declare his intention to contest.

Mefor stated this as the Peoples Democratic Party members in the House of Representatives warned the ex-President against accepting offers of the APC and the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.)

Explaining the stand of the ILDF, Mefor, who believes the next President should be from the South-East region, argued that Jonathan had been affected by the constitutional amendment and thus had no right to contest.

He said, “I have said it before and I’m saying it again. We will go to court to challenge it if Jonathan joins the presidential race.

“What my group, Igbo Leadership Development Foundation, would test in court is whether Jonathan can be sworn in as President of Nigeria a third time despite the express constitutional provision against it.

“We are just waiting for Jonathan to pick up a political party’s nomination form and the Igbo Leadership Development Foundation will approach a court of competent jurisdiction to challenge his qualification to stand this election. I have nothing personal against Jonathan. After all, I was in his media team in 2015 but we have to do things right as a nation under the law and not as a nation of impunity picked as a consensus candidate.

In a chat with The PUNCH, a human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), said any party that picked Jonathan as its candidate risked being disqualified.

When asked what would happen if Jonathan emerged candidate, Falana stated, “Of course, their opponents will go to court to challenge the legal validity of his election. It will be too much of a risk without having a definitive pronouncement on this matter.”

The senior advocate maintained that Jonathan having been inaugurated as President twice could not be sworn in the third time.

Falana also noted that Section 137(3) of the constitution which was amended in 2018, states 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 argued that since Jonathan became President following the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua, he would not be able to serve two more full terms.

Mooh247:




Are we no more practising Democracy or doesn't Jonathan have constituitional right to seek a second mandate since he only got one in 2011



Why are this people attacking every aspirants thinking that would automatically make Obi the people's choice

They are attacking Osinbajo, Tinubu, Atiku , Wike and now their beloved Jonathan Azikwe Ebelechuckwu Jonathan


.

Minime10:
Now, I want to ask Mr. Falana, the Section of the law, he Falana is referencing, is Section 137 (3) of the 1999 Constitution, which according to Falana's argument was amended in 2018 to the effect that, a person who once completed the tenue of office of his principal, who died in office, cannot be sworn-in to that same office more than once, now Jonathan tenue ended in 2015, three good years before the said amendment to the Constitution was made, now the question is, was that
Section of the law so amended, made to take effect retrospectively or prospectively Mr. Falana and even the Constitution he quoted is silent on that.
Section 137 (1) (b) Says " a person cannot be elected more than twice to the office of the President. Now, the big question is, has Jonathan ever contested and was elected President twice, properly so speaks? The answer of course, is an emphatic "NO". The action and situation they ( Falana & his Igbo group) are complaining of took place in the past, even the said Section they're now quoting was never contemplated, but it only came to be promulgated in 2018, has Falana himself pointed out, so how come they now think and argued that a law made, in 2018 should affect a person for an event that took place in 2011.
On the Igbo group, saying Jonathan cannot contest, Jonathan has every right under the sun to contest in any election in Nigeria if he Jonathan so wish, no gangoro group can stop him either by Court or by any other means. There is no Section in the Constitution that Zoned Political Offices to any Region or any group of people.
These people should stop hitting up the already tensed political environment

Lovelive:
Do you think you are making serious sense ?



No need to lecture you.

Sorry, I don't engaged urchins and unlettered idiots like you. I arugue logically and sequentially with learned minds. Go back to school, it's never too late.

Lovelive:
As I said earlier, sense is far from you but I know the nature will grant you that ability when you are ready.



I care less for your insults and names tagged. I don't talk much,