A Federal High Court in Abuja will on Friday, May 8, hear a suit seeking to prevent former President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting the 2027 presidential election.
The suit, filed by lawyer Johnmary Jideobi, argues that Jonathan is constitutionally ineligible to run again after having completed the unexpired term of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and serving a full term following the 2011 election.
Jideobi is asking the court to declare that Jonathan has exhausted the two-term limit allowed under sections 1(1), (2), (3) and 137(3) of the 1999 Constitution. He is also seeking an order restraining Jonathan from presenting himself as a presidential candidate and barring the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from accepting or publishing his name.
Jonathan is named as the first defendant in suit FHC/ABJ/CS/2102/2025, with INEC and the Attorney-General of the Federation listed as the second and third defendants. None of the defendants had filed responses as of April 28, when Justice Peter Lifu ordered that hearing notices be served.
In an affidavit supporting the suit, Emmanuel Agida said Jonathan was sworn in as president on May 6, 2010, after Yar’Adua’s death, and later won the 2011 election for a full term. He warned that allowing Jonathan to contest again would amount to a third presidential oath of office and a breach of the constitution.
Agida said the action was filed “in the public interest, in the defence of the rule of law and accentuation of the supremacy of the Constitution.”
