Three politicians and two lawyers have separately asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to stop Jonathan and Vice-President Namadi Sambo from re-contesting in 2015.
The plaintiffs argued in their suits that by the virtue of constitutional provisions, the President and the Vice-President, had previously been elected for one single term of four years.
Two politicians – Adejumo Ajagbe and Olatoye Wahab – filed the first suit while two lawyers and another politician filed the second on September 19 .
The lawyers are Mase Acho and Saeeq Sarki. The third is Murtala Abubakar.
Ajagbe, who claimed to be a member of the PDP in Lagos State, and Wahab, a member of the APC in Ogun State, said they were presidential aspirants whose interest would be jeopardised if Jonathan and Sambo were not barred.
The two plaintiffs, who engaged the services of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, joined the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Attorney General of the Federation as defendants.
The SANs are James Ocholi, A. J. Owonikoko, Okon Efut and Mahmud Magaji.
The suit marked, FHC/ABJ/CS/662/2014, was assigned to Justice Ahmed Mohammed but the two defendants have yet to respond to it.
The plaintiffs argued that by virtue of the oaths taken by Jonathan and Sambo following the death of President Umaru Yar’adua in 2010 and their subsequent re-election in 2011, both of them were deemed to have completed the two terms allowed by law.
Their statement of claim read in part, “That being so, the reference to ‘two previous elections’ in Section 137(1)(b) of the Constitution includes two previous oath of allegiance and oath of office as President.
“It is therefore safe to conclude that a Vice President, who had taken the oath of allegiance and oath of office for two previous terms as President is, in law, deemed to have been elected into the office of President at two previous elections, thereby standing disqualified to contest another election into that office.”
They raised five questions for the court’s determination and sought seven reliefs, including an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the AGF and INEC from accepting as candidate in the 2015 presidential election, anybody caught by “two-previous election limit and eight-year term limit.”
Viewed 1 times
Five politicians, lawyers ask court to stop Jonathan
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for dropping your response, there are other interesting news on the page too