President Goodluck Jonathan is to face
contempt charges over the recent emergence of his re-election campaign
posters on the streets of Abuja. The posters were first seen in the
Federal Capital Territory on January 1, 2013.
Although Jonathan’s aides have disowned
the posters, the plaintiff in a pending suit, which is challenging his
eligibility to contest the 2015 presidential election, Mr. Cyriacus
Njoku, and his lawyer, Mr. Ugochukwu Osuagwu, have finalised plans to
file contempt charges against the President over the development.
Osuagwu told SUNDAY PUNCH in a
telephone interview that the plaintiff was concerned with the
implications of Jonathan’s campaign posters on the pending suit.
He said, “My client has expressed
concerns about what is going on. Despite the fact that the court has not
given judgment, the 1st defendant (Jonathan), directly or indirectly,
is taking an action that prejudices the case.
“It is clear that such an action in law
is contempt ex-facie justicea because the court has not given judgment.
Judgment was reserved and he is taking an action that prejudices the
case.
“We are talking about respect for the
rule of law and the plaintiff cannot take the laws into his hands, so
the only option left for the plaintiff is to make an application to the
court for contempt and we are already looking at that option.
“The action taken by the first
defendant’s foot soldiers is capable of bringing about a breakdown of
law and order in the society.
“The court has not ruled on the eligibility of the President to run in 2015. This is bad for the judiciary.”
The lawyer added that even though the
President enjoys immunity and has denied knowledge of the posters, it
may not protect him from the contempt charge.
He said, “The matter in court is
election-related. It is to determine tenure. Jonathan’s lawyer did not
raise immunity during trial and can’t raise it in court again. Let the
President deny in court that he knows nothing about the posters.”
In a separate interview with our
correspondent, the plaintiff, Njoku, insisted that the appearance of the
campaign posters was an action that constituted contempt of the court
on the part of Jonathan.
He also expressed concerns that the FCT High Court appeared unwilling to deliver judgment on the matter.
“It is contempt. Judgment has not been given and we are waiting for date of judgment.
“When we came for judgment on October 18,
2012, the court did not sit. The judge was said to have travelled and
we were told that when he comes back, we will be given a date.
“But he has come back since and no date has been given. We are still waiting.”
The Presidency, on Saturday, however said
it was “sheer illiteracy” for anybody to threaten to sue the President
for contempt of court over the appearance of posters which he knew
nothing about.
Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati,
said, “We have made it clear many times that the President does not know
anything about the posters. How can you accuse somebody of contempt of
court for something he does not know anything about? Does the PDP
chieftain know the meaning of contempt? This is absolute nonsense and
sheer illiteracy.”
Njoku, a member of the Peoples Democratic
Party, had asked the court to stop Jonathan from contesting the 2015
presidential election on the grounds that he was already in his second
term in office, having taken the Oath of Office of President twice.
He filed the suit after the President declared that he was currently serving his first term in office.
Citing Section 137(1)(b) of the 1999
Constitution, Njoku maintained that Jonathan could not swear to an Oath
of Office three times, having sworn – first on May 6, 2010, while
assuming the office of president after the death of late President Umaru
Yar’Adua, and on May 29, 2011 — after his victory in the 2011
presidential election.
The plaintiff joined Jonathan, the PDP
and the Independent National Electoral Commission as the first, second
and third defendants in the suit.
However, in his counter motion to the
suit, Jonathan insisted that he was currently serving his first term of
four years in office as the President of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, in line with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.
In a 15-paragraph counter-affidavit
deposed to by Mr. Osahon Okeaya-Inneh, a lawyer in the chambers of his
lead counsel, Mr. Ade Okeaya-Inneh, SAN, Jonathan described the suit as
frivolous, saying it failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action.
Okeaya-Inneh further informed the court
that the suit was made more frivolous by the fact that Jonathan had not
announced an intention to run for office in the 2015 presidential poll.
The PDP had attempted to settle the
matter out of court. The party’s chapter in Zuba Ward proposed the
out-of-court settlement but following the failure of the plan, the court
proceeded to hear the matter on its merit.
Meanwhile, the posters on Jonathan’s 2015 re-election have disappeared from many parts of the FCT.
One of our correspondents, who was at
Asokoro on Friday, reports that the posters which were seen on Thursday
at different spots, were no longer there.
But a few of the posters were still seen at Wuse Zone 5, near the national secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party.
At Asokoro, a newspaper vendor, who
identified himself as Chuks, said he resumed in the area on Friday
morning to discover that the posters had been removed.
A security guard in one of the buildings
on the crescent, Adamu Iliasu, also told one of our correspondents that
he saw some “government people” removing the posters on Thursday night.
Iliasu said before the removal of the
campaign materials, owners of the buildings where they were pasted had
removed the ones on their property.
“My boss asked me to remove the ones
pasted on his wall and on the dustbin in front of his house immediately
he saw them. The remaining ones were removed by government people,” he
said.
Jonathan, on Thursday, said security agencies in the country were free to go after those found to be behind the posters.
The big posters had the President’s
portrait in his Ijaw traditional attire with the inscriptions — 2015: No
Vacancy in Aso Rock; Let’s Do More, One Good Term Deserves Another and
Support Dr. Goodluck Azikwe Jonathan for 2015 Presidency.
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