A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Oba Maduabuchi, has described the latest legal action challenging former President Goodluck Jonathan’s eligibility to contest the 2027 presidential election as an abuse of court process.
Maduabuchi said the matter had already been decided by a competent court in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, and that the current suit filed in Abuja is both unnecessary and legally improper.
“Let me start by saying that that suit in the Federal High Court, Abuja, is an abuse of court process,” Maduabuchi said while speaking on The Morning Show on Arise TV on Tuesday.
“An abuse of court process is when you want to relitigate a case or an issue that has already been settled by a court of competent jurisdiction.”
According to him, the Yenagoa court had previously ruled that Jonathan is eligible to contest for president, and since no appeal has been filed against that judgment, it remains the binding legal position.
“qualification or non-qualification of Dr Goodluck Jonathan has been settled by the court in Yenagoa. Nobody has taken that issue on appeal. And until that judgment is set aside, it remains what the law is, and anybody who decides that he wants to take it to a court of coordinate jurisdiction is simply abusing the process of the court and is a busybody”.
“But what controls a given situation is the position of the law when the act in issue was done. What was the position of the law in 2011?”
