Zoning: Jonathan challenges suit against his candidacy
By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA—President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, went before an Abuja High Court sitting at Maitama to challenge the propriety of a suit seeking to void his presidential aspiration under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Jonathan, who prayed the High Court to dismiss a suit filed before it by one Cyriacus Njoku, challenging his candidacy under the PDP, insisted that there was nothing in Article 7 of the party’s constitution that excluded any qualified aspirant from any part of the country, including himself, from participating in a primary election where majority of the delegates would determine who the ultimate flag bearer of the PDP for the 2011 general elections would be.
The plaintiff, Njoku, had in his suit, pleaded the high court to invoke its original jurisdiction and restrain both the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from fielding and admitting any candidate for the PDP presidential primaries who is from the south.
He is seeking eight separate reliefs, among which is “a declaration that unless the PDP constitution is amended by a special convention of its members to delete the zoning provision, Jonathan, being a Southerner, cannot vie for office of the president in 2011 under the PDP platform until 2015.”
As well as “a declaration that the 3rd respondent (Jonathan) who appointed the electoral umpire/INEC chairman, and is also participating in the 2011 elections being organised by the 4th respondent, INEC, cannot guarantee a free, fair and unbiased polls, being an interested candidate.”
President Goodluck Jonathan
He urged the high court to compel the party to respect the provisions of Article 7.2 (c) of its constitution which, he said, not only provided for rotation and zoning in public and party elective offices, but equally consistent with section 14 (3) and section 224 of the 1999 constitution.
However, President Jonathan, in a counter-affidavit he filed through his counsel, Mr Alex A. Izinyon, SAN, insisted yesterday that at no time was the president of Nigeria or the presidential ticket of the party zoned to the North for 2007 and 2011.
According to him, “the allegation is an invention of the plaintiff designed to stir up panic and cause avoidable tension.
There is nothing in the constitution of Nigeria or the 2nd defendant (PDP) to prevent any aspirant from any part of the country from contesting for the presidential ticket of the PDP.
Where such aspiration is manifestly unjust or inequitable, the delegates at the National Convention reserve the power not to vote-in such person.
“The late president Yar’Adua emerged from a primary election conducted at a National Convention, defeating other aspirants from different parts of the country.
“The 2nd defendant cannot exclude any of the aspirants on the ground of where they come from without breaching the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the plaintiff suing for himself, has no authority of the ‘North’ to commence this action,” Jonathan argued.
PDP disowns litigant
Meanwhile, the PDP, which was represented in court yesterday by its National Legal Adviser, Chief Olusola Oke, equally challenged the locus-standi of the plaintiff to institute the action, even as it urged the Abuja high court to hands-off the case for want of jurisdiction to meddle in the domestic affairs of a political party.
Chief Oke, who maintained that President Jonathan was qualified to contest the presidency under the PDP platform, further disowned the litigant, adding that the party did not even have his name in its list of duly registered members.
The Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory, Justice Gunmi, who presided over the matter, adjourned till December 1, for the plaintiff to respond to the submissions of both President Jonathan and the PDP.
It would be recalled that the high court had ab-initio, fixed same day to deliver judgment in a similar suit filed before it by a presidential aspirant of the PDP, Alhaji Aminu Duntsima.
