By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa

In the words of the learned authors of Collins English Dictionary,

a hidden agenda is ‘a situation in which someone secretly tries to achieve a particular thing while they appear to be doing something else.’ It is more of an ulterior motive, subtle hypocrisy and blatant deception. Under and by virtue of section 135 (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, the President is entitled to serve a tenure of four years in office subject to re-election for another term of four years and no more.

It has however become customary in Nigeria for those in positions of authority to seek to extend their tenure by hook or crook, using and deploying all manner of tactics to achieve this undemocratic aim. No one can state clearly the reasons for this but I blame it squarely on non-performance by the leader, thus creating some kind of fear in him to return to his former life as an ordinary citizen.

He has not provided infrastructure for his people so he is afraid to go and queue at the airport to board a plane, to wait for public supply of electricity, to send his children to any public school given the rot and neglect that he subjected the institutions to when he was in office; he is afraid to go back home to meet his people that he abandoned for all the years he was in office and he cannot think of sustaining his lavish and luxurious lifestyle that he enjoyed at the expense of the people.

Then the other factor why African leaders love to stay in office till death is the manner in which the people worship their leaders. In these climes, the President is next to God, he wields all powers, of appointments, of revenue, of security and of governance in totality and absolutely. This is partly from our culture, where elders are taken to be the wisest of men and women and the repository of knowledge so that they are seen as people who can do no wrong.

Another factor is colonialism, where the foreign invaders took Africans as some people of inferior intelligence who should best be ruled as slaves. What they could not practice in their own climes they exported to Africa and they held themselves out as tin gods who must be worshipped. The story is told of the perception of the English man in the olden days, whose car must not hit you on the road or else you may be arrested and prosecuted for obstruction and even if such collision results in any fatality, you are expected to be happy that you were lucky to be hit by the car of an English man.

This mentality continued even after independence and our indigenous leaders lapped on to and sustained the culture of heroism, which they then transferred to the present crop of leaders. The peak of this leadership madness came with military incursion into politics, with the culture of strict obedience in the chain of command, such that even if the Head of State or the Military Administrator were to err in administration, you are not allowed to question their decision in any way at all.

Now back to the hidden agenda. Let us x-ray the occurrences of recent times in order to situate the topic of discourse. The sole entity entrusted with the transition process by the Constitution is INEC, which has the responsibility to conduct credible elections that will lead to the change of leadership. That organisation has been the subject of mindless attacks on its facilities and infrastructure lately. INEC has by itself disenfranchised many Nigerians by failing to issue them with Permanent Voter Card to the extent that about half the estimated two hundred million population will not be entitled to vote in 2023.

There are over one thousand cases pending in various courts in relation to the primary elections of the political parties and it does not seem that all of them can be effectively determined before the elections proper. Then comes the constant speculation following the use of BVAS and electronic transmission of election results. There are said to be cases pending in some remote courts allegedly designed to remove the INEC Chairman, some other cases are said to have ruled out the use of BVAS, some political parties have kicked against the deployment of technology for the conduct of elections whilst some persons have vowed that there will be no election in the South East region of the country.

You would ask me how the President is connected to all these. First is the unacceptable marginalisation of the South East region in the governance structure of Nigeria, especially within the highest organs of government, from the President to the Vice-President, Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Secretary to the Federal Government, the Head of Service of the Federation, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, the heads of the armed forces, just name them.

This is partly the reason for the agitation in that region which the President has deliberately designed as a means of creating unending tension there. Added to this is the continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu after he had defeated the government in court. It is part of the grand agenda of the President to stoke the fire of crisis by failing to release Kanu from custody, pending the hearing and determination of the appeal filed by the federal government. There is no justification for that decision if it was not meant to oil the embers of disorderliness. • To be continued tomorrow Adegboruwa is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).