A fresh lawsuit has been filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja, questioning former President Goodluck Jonathan's eligibility to contest a future presidential election. The suit, numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/2102/2025, was brought by a lawyer, Johnmary Jideobi, who argues Jonathan cannot run again because he took the presidential oath twice. Jonathan first assumed office in May 2010 following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, then won the 2011 election and served until 2015. Jideobi contends that both oaths count as full terms, making Jonathan ineligible under constitutional term limits.
This is not the first time Jonathan's eligibility has faced legal scrutiny. In 2012, Cyriacus Njoku filed a suit, FCT/HC/CV/2449/2012, at the FCT High Court to block Jonathan from contesting the 2015 election. Njoku claimed Jonathan's 2010 assumption of office constituted a full term, meaning his 2011 win was his second and final mandate. Jonathan's legal team countered that he was only elected president once, in 2011, and that his 2010 ascension was through constitutional succession, not an election.
On March 1, 2013, the court ruled in Jonathan's favour. Presiding Judge Mudashiru Oniyangi held that Jonathan had not been elected president in 2007 or 2010, only succeeding Yar'Adua under section 146(1) of the 1999 Constitution. The court found the 2010 oath did not amount to an elected term. The Court of Appeal affirmed this on March 3, 2015, with a five-judge panel stating that "the process of primaries, nomination, voting, collating and announcement of results" must occur for a term to count as elected. Since those did not happen in 2010, the succession could not be deemed an election.
A 2018 constitutional amendment introduced section 137(3), stating that a person who completes another president's term can only be elected once thereafter. This provision was designed for succession cases like Jonathan's. Ahead of the 2023 election, Andy Solomon and another plaintiff filed a suit challenging Jonathan's eligibility under this new clause, but details of the outcome were not provided in the source.
The courts have consistently ruled that Goodluck Jonathan was elected president only once, yet the debate over his eligibility persists despite settled legal precedent. The 2018 constitutional amendment was meant to clarify succession scenarios, but it has not stopped repeated legal challenges. Jonathan remains free to contest future elections under existing rulings, but the recurring suits suggest the law is still seen as ambiguous by some. This keeps the door open for more litigation rather than political clarity.
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