Former President Goodluck Jonathan has been cleared to contest the 2023 presidential election by the Federal High Court sitting in Yenegoa, Bayelsa State.
The court held that Jonathan’s right to vie for the office of president again cannot be stopped by any retroactive law.
In his judgment on Friday, the presideing judge, Justice Hamma Adama Dashen said, Jonathan is not affected by the fourth alteration to the constitution barring Vice-Presidents who succeed their principals from serving more than one full term.
Jonathan, who was elected as Vice-President alongside the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007, was inaugurated as President in 2010 following the death of Yar’Adua. In 2011, he ran for election and was again inaugurated.
In 2015, while running for another term, the courts ruled that Jonathan was eligible to contest as his first inauguration was done to complete Yar’Adua’s tenure.
However, in 2018, the President Muhammadu Buhari, signed the fourth alteration of the 1999 Constitution which bars Vice-Presidents who succeed their principals from serving more than one full term.
However, some have argued that the new provision ought not to apply to Jonathan as the law ought not to take a retroactive effect unless it was expressly stated.
