OPINION

WHY GOODLUCK JONATHAN CANNOT CONTEST FOR PRESIDENT, EVER

By Sadiq Ibrahim Dasin Esq 

Umaru Musa Yar'adua was sworn in as president on 29 May, 2007. He died on 5th May, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan took over on 6th May, 2010 and served as president till 29th May, 2011. That's one year and 23 days.

President Jonathan then contested the presidential election in 2011 and won. He served for 4 years from 29th May, 2011 to 29th May, 2015. 

When Jonathan sought to contest again in 2015, some governors from his party, the PDP, refused. They argued that for having served out/completed Yar'adua's term, contested and won in 2011 and served for 4 years, Jonathan was sworn in as president twice and therefore not qualified to contest in 2015 because of Section 137 (1) (b) of the constitution. 

S. 137 (1) (b) of the constitution said-

"A person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if he has been ELECTED to such office at any TWO previous ELECTIONS".

-Emphasis mine.

The question then was, having regards to S. 137 (1) (b) above, was president Goodluck Jonathan actually ELECTED at two PREVIOUS elections so as to disqualify him from contesting in 2015? 

In answering this question the High Court of the FCT, Abuja presided by Justice Mudasiru Oyebanji held that S. 137(1)(b) of the constitution did not disqualify president Jonathan from contesting in 2015. 

Justice Oyebanji said "... after the election of Yar’Adua, there was no election or bye-election upon which Jonathan became president. He was merely asked to assume the position. I will like to borrow the words that was used by the legislature then, 'doctrine of necessity'. Jonathan, said Justice Oyebanj, "was not elected into the position but was asked to assume the position. Having exhausted that tenure, he sought and obtained the ticket of the party to contest for presidency in 2011.

“Consequently" said the judge, as at 2015, Jonathan was on his first tenure of four years and was qualified therefore to contest for presidential election in 2015".

Nobody appealed against this judgement because no court would have stopped Jonathan from contesting in 2015 based on S. 137 (1) (b) of the constitution.

'Da mu ka ga haka, sei muka kwashe kayanmu muka tafi jam'iyar 'merger' because a ƙashin gaskiya, based on S. 137 (1) (b) kam, the law was on Jonathan's side.

WHY I SAID JONATHAN IS NOW BARRED FROM CONTESTING 

Again thanks to Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, the sppeaker who made me a member of the Constitution Review Committee of the National Assembly in 2015. 

When we sat down to review/alter the provisions of the 1999 constitution, we decided to put the matter permanently to rest so that no Vice President or Deputy Governor will in the future assume leadership of this country or of a state as a result of death, resignation or incapacitattion of an incumbent Governer or President in such a way that what happened between Yar'adua and Jonathan happens again. 

To do that we looked at S. 137 of the constitution which at that time had only 2 subsections, (1) and (2), and we altered the section by inserting a new subsection "(3)" which says that -

“(3) A person who was WORN IN as President 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.”

Again emphasis mine.

I was there and we had a heated debate on this before we agreed to insert it into the constitution. So with this insertion, therefore from 2018 henceforth 'in kana Vice President ko Deputy Governor, ko kwana ɗaya kayi as President ko Governor, ka karasa tenure na wanda aka zaɓa ya mutu, ko yayi resigning, ko ya zama incapacitated, 'to wallahi term ɗaya tak zaka ƙara'.

This came as Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (Fourth Alteration, No 16) Act, 2017 which was signed by President Buhari in 2018. 

In fact if Jonathan had won the election in 2015, he would served for more than 8 years, a thing never contemplated by our constitution. And if the constitutional amendment was not done, many Vice Presidents and Deputy Governors would serve for more than 8 years, a thing that would have made nonsense of the constitutionnal term limit for executives in the constitution. 

SO WHAT NOW HAPPENS TO THE PREVIOUS JUDGEMENT?

A lot of people are still arguing that President Jonathan may contest again because he has a previous judgement in his favor which was handed down before our amendment since insertion of subsection "3" was done in 2018 after Jonathan lost the 2015 election which a court cleared him to contest then. 

The new law, according to this argument, should not affect Jonathan since it came after he was cleared to contest. 

The amendment, according to them, has become EX-POST FACTOR law; that is, it is law "that RETROACTIVELY changed the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationship that existed before the enactment of the law".

This argument is fallacious. Retroactive law or EX-POST FACTO LAW "is most typically used to refer to a criminal statute that punish actions retroactively, thereby criminalizing conduct that was legal when originally performed."

On the other hand, constitution is a fundamental document that outlinees the fundamental principle, structures and powers of a government. It is not a criminal law legislation. As the supreme law of the land, it wipes away what was before. A constitution does what the French call 'tabula rasa' or clean slate. In other words, whatever was law before will cease to be law 'instanta' after an amendment was made. It wipes it off.

Tomorrow we shall look at why Jolly Nyame, Abubakar Audu and Bukar Abba Ibrahim contested for Governorship 3 times and served for more than 8 years in office each. We shall also see why Ibrahim Gaidam served for more than 10 years as governor of Yobe state.