A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Oba Maduabuchi, has described the latest legal action challenging former President Goodluck Jonathan’s eligibility to contest the 2027 presidential election as an abuse of court process.
Maduabuchi said the matter had already been decided by a competent court in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, and that the current suit filed in Abuja is both unnecessary and legally improper.
“Let me start by saying that that suit in the Federal High Court, Abuja, is an abuse of court process,” Maduabuchi said while speaking on The Morning Show on Arise TV on Tuesday.
“An abuse of court process is when you want to relitigate a case or an issue that has already been settled by a court of competent jurisdiction.”
According to him, the Yenagoa court had previously ruled that Jonathan is eligible to contest for president, and since no appeal has been filed against that judgment, it remains the binding legal position.
He argued that the new case filed in Abuja is an attempt to relitigate a matter already decided, adding that the individuals behind the suit were “simply abusing the process of the court and are busybodies.”
Maduabuchi stated: “The issue of the qualification or non-qualification of Dr Goodluck Jonathan has been settled by the court in Yenagoa. Nobody has taken that issue on appeal. And until that judgment is set aside, it remains what the law is, and anybody who decides that he wants to take it to a court of coordinate jurisdiction is simply abusing the process of the court and is a busybody.
“But what controls a given situation is the position of the law when the act in issue was done. What was the position of the law in 2011?”
Section 137(3) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended in 2018, bars anyone who has already been sworn in twice as president from seeking re-election.
Jonathan was first sworn in on May 6, 2010, following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and again on May 29, 2011, after winning the 2011 presidential election.
However, Maduabuchi argued that this law does not apply to Jonathan because it was not in effect during his time in office.
“When Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan took the oath of office as President of Nigeria, what was the position of the law? Was Section 137(3) part of our laws then? You already said the law came into effect in 2018. So, when Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was taking the oath of office to complete the tenure of Yar’Adua, there were no statutory limitations in existence then which could inhibit him from running his constitutionally guaranteed two terms.
“There was no inhibition. When in 2018 you brought in the amendment of Section 137(3), did Goodluck Ebele Jonathan take an oath as president after the amendment?” he said.
His comment came a day after a lawyer, Johnmary Jideobi, filed a case at the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking to stop Jonathan from contesting in 2027.
The lawyer is also asking the court to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from accepting Jonathan’s name from any political party.
