He took the gamble in 2015 and scaled the legal hurdle on his way. But then, the 1999 Constitution was not clear on the status of contestants like him. This was in 2015. These are the contestants who had held office as president or governor under extenuating circumstances.
Such a circumstance arose in 2010 when Jonathan’s principal, President Umoru Yar’Adua died, and he automatically succeeded the deceased in line with constitutional requirement. Thus, Jonathan became an accidental president in May 2010. His presidency was not borne out of his direct election into the nation’s highest office. It came by accident. He had been elected in 2007 on the joint ticket with Yar’Adua. Jonathan became vice president (VP) by virtue of that.
It is likely that Jonathan would have remained VP and served for eight years, if Yar’Adua had not died. This is now history. Fifteen years after he became president by accident in 2010, and 10 after he left office in 2015 after being elected in his own right in 2011, Jonathan is now at the centre of some people’s self-serving campaign for him to run again. They want Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan to try his luck for the exalted office. Jonathan has always been a lucky man. Those rooting for his return seem to be counting on this luck, which saw him become accidental governor and president at different times, to get him through in 2027.
By sheer luck, he always got on a platter what many others hankered after and never attained. He sits down on his own jeje reading newspapers, as his wife, Dame Patience, recounted in the uncertain days of the illhealth of his principal when he was sidelined by the hawks in government, and just like that luck smiles on him – the way manna drops from above. Those who will benefit from Jonathan running in 2027 are fighting tooth and nail to win the argument.
They have exhumed a 2022 court judgment by the Federal High Court in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, to help their case that there is no constitutional encumbrance on their man’s path. There has always been something about Jonathan and the Constitution. He became acting president in February 2010 by virtue of a ‘Doctrine of Neccesity’ created by the Senate to sort out a constitutional logjam.
Indeed, the framers of the Constitution never envisaged the kind of crisis the nation witnessed then – where the president would be infirm and unable to hand over to his deputy during his long absence. Jonathan has since revealed that Yar’Adua did the needful, but the letter never got to the National Assembly. Some of those who hid the letter are now championing his return in 2027. He has to watch his back.
In 2015, his reelection bid generated another constitutional interest. Those opposed to him running went to court, claiming that he was no longer eligible to contest, citing Section 137 (1) (b). The section says: 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. To the plaintiffs, Jonathan had run for election twice and as such was no longer eligible. The high court disagreed and the appeal court upheld that decision. Jonathan contested and lost to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The rumour of his running again in 2023 opened another constitutional challenge. By then the Constitution had been amended, with the insertion of a new Section 137 (3) which states: 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. Having completed Yar’Adua’s term and subsequently elected into office in 2011, Jonathan is clearly caught by this provision. The snag is the amendment was done in 2017, but signed into law in 2018, three years after he left office in 2015.
His supporters are arguing that the provision cannot take retroactive effect, citing the 2022 judgment of Justice Isa Dashen of the Bayelsa Federal High Court, which this paper analysed last Thursday. Going by the verdict, Jonathan can run. But it is wrong to describe the judgment as ‘final’ on the ground that it can no longer be appealed because of the effluxion of time.
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For the avoidance of doubt, no verdict of the high court can ever be ‘final’ because litigation does not end there. It ends at the Supreme Court, if the litigants decide to go all the way. Because it has been three years since the judgment, whereas the time for appealing it is 90 days, the ‘we want Jonathan again’ crowd is trying to wear it the toga of finality. It is for them to do whatever they can to have their way, but they must bear in mind that those opposed to their plan are not sleeping too.
There is no argument over the subsistence of the verdict. However, those using it to make a case for Jonathan’s return are either only trying to be clever by half or do not know how the courts work. That the judgment can no longer be appealed does not mean that a fresh case cannot be instituted on the same matter since it never got to the Supreme Court where all legal disputes end. Another litigant can, therefore, go to court to stop Jonathan from running, if he decides to do so.
Jonathan has beheld this spectacle before. This is not the first time that fairweather political friends will be gathering in his name to chorus ‘run, Jonathan run’. He knows what they are looking for – a pay check for all their hue and cry.Only Jonathan knows what is good for Jonathan and not the so-called do-gooders whose sole aim is to use him to achieve their selfish political ends. Will Jonathan’s running in 2027 change anything? It won’t. His first-and-a-half comings, that is his own four years from 2011 – 2015, and the completion of Yar’Adua’s term between 2010 and 2011, were nothing to write home about.
He has no record to run on. His luck has always carried him, though. But he should not push his luck too far. In Jonathan’s life, luck has always lurked around him. From deputy governor in Bayelsa, he became accidental governor in 2005 when his principal, Diepreye Alamiyeisegha, got into trouble and was jailed in Britain. But he should not be carried away by this luck and the sweet talks of deceitful politicians.
I can hear Chinua Achebe addressing Jonathan in his book: Things fall apart, “those whose kernels were cracked by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble”. Jonathan should remain true to himself as his humility has always been his strength. He should not allow himself to be led by the nose by people who are only interested in building a political empire for themselves by using him to achieve their aim.
