President Goodluck Jonathan has been cleared by a Federal High Court in Abuja to run in the 2015 Presidential election.
The presiding Judge, Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi on Friday, ruled that President Jonathan is eligible to contest the forthcoming 2015 presidential election if he so desires.
Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi held that Jonathan’s assumption of the office of president after the demise of late former President Umar Yar’Adua was in line with what the National Assembly aptly described as Doctrine of Necessity and not as a result of emerging winner in any by-election conducted after the death of the late former president.
However, Justice Oniyangi stated that his judgment does not in any way make President Jonathan an automatic candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
He warned that his decision should not be misconstrued to mean that Jonathan has become an automatic candidate of the party for the 2015 presidential election.
The court further held that the president’s tenure of office begins to count from 29th May, 2011 when he was sworn into office as the elected president of Nigeria and not 6th May, 2010 when he assumed office following Yar’Adua’s death.
The court held that the suit as presently constituted does not disclose any cause of action and that the plaintiff, Mr. Cyriakus Njoku, lacks the locus standi in instituting the case.
Cyriakus Njoku had approached the court seeking for an order to restrain President Jonathan from running for office in 2015 stating that it will amount to breaching a constitutional provision which prescribed a period of not more than eight years for occupants of the office of the president.
