Jonathan submits APC Presidential Forms
The Fulani group, which purchased the APC’s N100m presidential nomination and expression of interest forms for former President Goodluck Jonathan, has said on Thursday, that he would submit the forms on Friday.
The group stated this as three presidential appointees on Thursday challenged the directive of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), that all political appointees contesting the 2023 elections should resign.
Also, there were indications on Thursday that the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, would not heed the call for him to resign before the APC presidential primary scheduled for May 30.
His lawyer, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), told The PUNCH that if the CBN Governor was going to resign, he would only do so 30 days before the 2023 elections.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, after the Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, disclosed that the President had directed members of his cabinet contesting party primaries to resign on or before Monday.
He however said the decision to quit would be left to the President and Emefiele.
Emefiele had through Ozekhome applied for an order of status quo ante bellum to be made against INEC and the AGF so that he would not be made to resign from office until 30 days to the 2023 general election.
The plaintiff in an ex-parte application had also denied being a political appointee but a public servant not caught by Section 84 (12) of the new Electoral Act 2022.
The CBN governor had asked the court to invoke Section 318 of the 1999 Constitution to bar the defendants from asking him to vacate office until 30 days to the February 2023 presidential election.
Emefiele had expressed apprehension that the sale and submission of the presidential nomination form would expire on Wednesday and that unless INEC and the AGF were ordered to maintain status ante bellum as of May 5 when he filed the suit, he would be made to vacate office before his form would be accepted by the appropriate authority.
But Ozekhome told The PUNCH that while the choice to resign was left for the Presidency and his client, the CBN governor would only resign on moral grounds and not on points of law.
He said, “Whether he (Emefiele) goes or not is his own decision, he has told me to take up the legal aspect for him, that if he wants to go at all, he is entitled to stay in office 30 days to the general election.
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“But it is now left for him to go even before the case is decided or after. But at least the law would have decided.
“Yes, it (resignation) is left for him but not because of legal requirements. If he wants to go, it will be on moral grounds, not because the law says he must go now.
