As discussions around the 2027 presidential election intensify, renewed attention has turned to whether former President Goodluck Jonathan can legally contest for the presidency again.
The debate has resurfaced following a suit filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja by a lawyer, Johnmary Jideobi, seeking a declaration that Jonathan is constitutionally barred from seeking another term in office.
The case, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2102/2025, argues that Jonathan had already taken the presidential oath twice — first in 2010 after the death of former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and again in 2011 after winning the presidential election.
Jonathan served as vice-president from 2007 until May 2010, when he succeeded Yar’Adua following the latter’s death. He later won the 2011 presidential election but lost his re-election bid in 2015.
However, the legal questions surrounding his eligibility are not new and have been tested repeatedly in court over the years.
The first major challenge emerged before the 2015 election when Cyriacus Njoku filed a suit at an FCT High Court in Abuja seeking to stop Jonathan from contesting again.
In the suit marked FCT/HC/CV/2449/2012, Njoku argued that Jonathan’s assumption of office in May 2010 should count as a full presidential term. According to him, the oath taken in 2011 after winning the election meant Jonathan had exhausted the constitutional limit allowed for presidents.
The plaintiff asked the court to restrain Jonathan, the Peoples Democratic Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission from presenting or accepting his candidacy for the 2015 election.
Jonathan’s legal team countered that he had only been elected president once — in 2011 — arguing that his emergence in 2010 resulted from constitutional succession and not through an electoral process contemplated under Section 137(1)(b) of the Constitution.
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Although the court ruled that the plaintiff lacked the legal standing to institute the case, Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi still addressed the substance of the matter.
In a judgment delivered on March 1, 2013, the court held that the constitutional provision disqualifying anyone elected president at two previous elections did not apply to Jonathan because he had only won one election.
The court further ruled that Jonathan’s 2010 swearing-in followed constitutional succession after Yar’Adua’s death and could not be regarded as an electoral victory.
Dissatisfied with the judgment, Njoku appealed the decision.
On March 3, 2015, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling, affirming that the constitutional meaning of “election” involved a formal electoral process including primaries, voting, collation, and declaration of results.
“The process of primaries, nomination, voting, collating and announcement of results must necessarily be involved. These did not take place when the 1st respondent stepped into the shoes of President Yar’adua on the 6th of May 2010,” the appellate court held.
“Again, the succession of a Vice-President to the office of a President who died, in accordance with section 146(1) of the 1999 Constitution, cannot be ‘deemed an election’, especially for the purpose of taking away a right that has been vested.”
The appeal was subsequently dismissed.
The constitutional landscape, however, changed in 2018 when Nigeria amended the 1999 Constitution through the Fourth Alteration Act.
The amendment introduced Section 137(3), which states that anyone sworn in as president to complete the tenure of another elected president “shall not be elected to such office for more than a single term.”
The provision was widely interpreted as directly addressing scenarios similar to Jonathan’s succession in 2010.
The issue resurfaced again in 2022 when two plaintiffs approached the Federal High Court in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, seeking to prevent Jonathan from contesting the presidential election under the All Progressives Congress.
This time, the plaintiffs based their arguments squarely on the amended Section 137(3), insisting that Jonathan’s completion of Yar’Adua’s tenure and subsequent election in 2011 disqualified him from seeking another term.
Jonathan’s lawyers argued that the constitutional amendment could not be applied retrospectively because his rights accrued before the amendment came into force in 2018.
The court agreed with his defence, ruling that Section 137(3) could not retroactively disqualify Jonathan. The court also reaffirmed that Jonathan had only been elected president once, while his 2010 assumption of office arose through constitutional succession.
The judgment referenced earlier decisions, including the 2013 and 2015 rulings.
In the latest suit before the Abuja Federal High Court, Jonathan’s legal team, led by Chris Uche, is relying heavily on those previous decisions.
According to the defence, the courts have already settled the constitutional questions surrounding Jonathan’s eligibility, and those decisions remain valid since they have not been overturned by the Supreme Court.
The legal team also argued that the current suit amounts to an attempt to relitigate issues that have already been determined by courts of competent jurisdiction.
