The President was almost swearing that insurgency and banditry would end in December 2022, but only last week I watched as the people of Kaduna South buried their dead ones who were slaughtered like animals. And this is continuing unreported in various regions of the country. The unacceptable increase in the spate of kidnappings, killings and general bloodshed in the land cannot give anyone a sense of hope that there is a genuine desire to hand over power in the next one year. This is the reason for the constant and vain repetitions of the presidency that the President will vacate the Villa at the appropriate time since there is serious trust deficiency on the part of the government.

Then you move to the confusion that the Central Bank of Nigeria has thrown our economy into, given the skyrocketing exchange rate, galloping inflation, illegal monetary policies of limiting cash withdrawals without corresponding technological infrastructure to back it up and the thoughtless naira redesign. In the build up to the Christmas holidays, the network of most banks collapsed and this ruined the season for so many people who ventured to trust the Godwin Emefiele-led cashless policy.

Like a bolt from the blues, the Department of State Security has accused the CBN governor of terrorism. How did that come about, you would ask? Is Emefiele directly engaged in terrorism or is he directly or indirectly sponsoring it? We have not been availed the true picture of this disturbing development which is between Emefiele and the presidency since it is part of the hidden agenda.

We then woke up suddenly to learn of the interrogation of the Chief Justice of Nigeria by the DSS, allegedly on account of his utterances in Rivers State. The judiciary and indeed the whole world were suddenly reminded of the Walter Onnoghen saga and the uncertainty of that office, when the Chief of Justice of Nigeria was removed from office through an ex-parte order and his successor was also booted out of office in a palace coup.

Once the judiciary becomes vulnerable, then democracy is imperiled. What this means is that there will be no voice to courageously look the President in the eye and tell him that his tenure has expired, when eventually he unveils the hidden agenda. The agenda then is to make the chances of holding elections in February very slim and dim, to throw the nation into economic crisis by squeezing the purchasing power of the people, impose artificial fuel scarcity on them and throw the Central Bank into confusion. Added to this will be the upsurge in killings, banditry, general violence and mindless criminalities all over the land.

With the judiciary under constant threat and close monitoring, then dictatorship will set in and some rented mad crowd will emerge, singing praises of the President to the highest heavens and threatening to kill themselves should the President vacate office in such unstable condition. They will begin to list uncompleted projects that have been deliberately delayed for so many years and urging the people to allow the President finish what he could not achieve in all of the eight years of his sojourn in office.

This is the hidden agenda that is staring us in the face as we move closer and closer to February 2023. Yes, we are all prepared to resist and defeat this hidden agenda, given the sufferings that we have all been subjected to these many years of the Buhari administration but I can tell you that the agenda is real and potent and unless we begin to organise ourselves now, we may be in for some surprises come 2023.

But having said that, it should be clear to the planners of such an evil plot that it will not succeed. President Jonathan conducted elections in the heat of the Boko Haram crisis in the North East and he willingly surrendered power to President Buhari in the greater interest of the nation. The mandate of the President under the Constitution is eight years maximum and there can be no excuse under the heavens for the extension of that mandate by one single second.

Come what may, power must change hands on May 29, 2023, the elections must be conducted in February 2023 and it must be conducted peacefully and creditably. Whoever is nursing the idea of tenure elongation for President Buhari is his greatest enemy because God will not support it and the people of Nigeria will defeat it hands down.

Governance is a continuum and if the President thinks he has any good programme for Nigeria which he has not been able to accomplish in eight years, he should double his efforts to campaign for his preferred candidate through whom he would be able to implement such programmes if Nigerians decide to vote for his candidate. Any other backdoor option is doomed to fail and it will fail woefully.

Let all the offices of INEC be razed down, let Nigerians be stopped from withdrawing cash from the banks altogether, let the whole courts be shut down and let all activists be raided and herded into custody, let Boko Haram be launched afresh and all herdsmen and bandits be let loose, but the elections must hold in February 2023, a winner must emerge and the government of Nigeria and of the states must be handed over to the winners. This is not negotiable.
Adegboruwa is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).