APC: Why Atiku, Obi pose no threats to Tinubu – Morka party spokesman

• Only mischief-makers speak against Muslim-Muslim ticket

From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Felix Morka, a human rights lawyer, is the National Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Speaking to Sunday Sun in Abuja, Morka delved into several issues, particularly the chances of the opposition in the forthcoming presidential election, why the APC continued with the Muslim-Muslim presidential joint ticket, the reality of the claim that Nigerians don’t like the ruling party, and how Peter Obi can always win the presidential election online.

With the realities and positive indices on the ground in favour of the APC, will it be right to say that the 2027 presidential election has been won and lost?

No, we, at the APC, don’t speak in that language. We don’t speak of future elections as having been won or lost. It is an election that we are preparing to contest. We are preparing vigorously to contest that election. We are doing everything that we need to do as a party to increase our prospects for victory.

We are working very hard. We are not taking that election for granted, and we never take any election for granted. We are not going to begin now to take a major national election for granted. Which is why every day we are engaging with our members. We have done a presentation of duly completed INEC nomination forms for Mr President and Mr Vice President.

We brought leaders of the party together to celebrate that moment and to send a signal not just to our party members but to Nigerians that we mean business, and that we have every confidence in the candidate we are offering Nigerians. We have every confidence in the future that, as our candidate, he will help our party to win the next election decisively.

We are not taking anything for granted. We are, instead, doubling our efforts to ensure that Nigerians see that we are a better alternative amongst all the competing political parties.

In your calculations, what are the strengths and factors that will give APC an edge over other parties in the 2027 presidential election?

I can tell you that the APC is a strong contender in the next presidential election. Not just because we are the governing party, but because we are a party that understands the logic of elections. We understand the power of the people. We understand that the electorate are the ultimate deciders of who governs and who doesn’t govern.

We understand that for them to decide in our favour, we need to continue to demonstrate that the mandate we have already is put into optimum use, not just to develop the country, but to break away from the tradition of retrogression, which has characterised governance in this country. We are taking the provision of infrastructure seriously. We are taking education seriously.

The APC has turned Nigeria into a massive construction site. There is no state you visit today that you won’t see massive physical projects, whether they are roads, whether they are housing, whether they are bridges, and whatever you may think. Our governments are building and rebuilding schools and hospitals. Our universities are functioning better than they have not functioned in a very long time.

They have been open to students to learn without any interruption. It is a far cry from what used to happen when students would spend one month in school and stay two years at home. That has become a thing of the past. It is not by accident.

This is by an intentional reengineering of relationships of infrastructure delivery, support, funding for schools, careful planning, and a very heightened consciousness that the era must end, and it has ended. Everywhere you turn to, the APC is showing and demonstrating records that previous governments could only imagine or dream of.

Mention any department; if you take the economy for example, the fundamentals of the economy of this country have never been this good. We are now witnessing very stable stability of the Naira in relation to the Dollar. People can plan.

People are able to say that I have N100,000, I want to travel in the next one month, I am going to use X amount to buy foreign exchange, and that plan stays with very little or no alteration.

That is leadership, that is governance, that is economic reengineering. Take the hospitals, for example; cancer centres have been built, and primary healthcare centres are being built across this country. In my district, I see them, and I know it is happening elsewhere.

Take our foreign trade, for example; our balance of payments has never been this consistently good. They have never been this consistently good, where we have emerged as the best in Africa when it comes to trade surplus.

It means that Nigeria is now consistently exporting more than we are importing, which is why our foreign exchange position has also increased; foreign investment and foreign remittances are pouring in.

All of these are contributing to the stability of the Naira to the point now that international financial institutions talk about the Naira and that we need to devalue the Naira more. But we are not doing that. Market forces will rule. The fact of the matter is that elections are a referendum about governance. With everything I am saying, I can continue over and over.

Take the oil exports, for instance; for the first time in history in a long while, our production of oil and exports have exceeded our OPEC quota. How do you explain that? This country was struggling to export 700,000 barrels of oil a day. Today we are now just starting at two million barrels of oil a day. That is massive.

Can we do more? Yes, but have we started that journey to doing more? Yes. My point is that all of the indicators are good. Inflation is coming down, purchasing power has improved from where it was three years ago, but it still has a lot of ceiling, headroom to even come down, so that people can afford their basics, so their money can go further than is going today.

What exactly are your fears for the 2027 election, and secondly, from all the positives you have enumerated, what are those factors that will count against the APC in the 2027 presidential election?

An election is a contest, and in a contest, you take nothing for granted. We don’t sit down to worry too much about a lot of things. The reason we don’t worry too much is that, rather than worry, we spend that time building bulwarks against any threat to our prospects of victory. It means that if we know that there is something we need to do better, we start ahead, so that by the time we get there, we have transformed the basis of our concern.

So, that is why it is difficult for me to enumerate things that we consider to be negatives or threats to us because anything you mention now as a possible threat, we are already engaging it. Take all of the false narratives spewed by the opposition; they tell a lot of stories to gaslight Nigerians.

But if you tell a Nigerian student who has an older sibling who spent six or seven years studying a four-year course that this government is not doing well with education, he will not accept it. You can’t gaslight such a Nigerian because the record will nullify your attempt to do so. That student will say no and defend it with the hitch-free academic journey.

It means something has been done well. When the opposition wants to spew narrative, we counter with record. If you notice, that is why all the opposition leaders from Peter Obi to Atiku Abubakar and all of the mouthy opposition leaders are dumb right now.

They have nothing to say against the economy. They have shifted. When this administration started, it was the economy, but now, even in their extreme folly, they have lost the courage to speak about the economy as they did in the beginning because they say in my place that when sand is too much in the food, even the blind will notice.

Their lies have become their own albatross. My point is that we are very confident about the future. We are hoping that Nigerians who are watching, experiencing the goodwill of this administration will still vote for us. Let me tell you, people on the internet, which is the playground of the likes of Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, but elections are not won in that space.

Elections are won with real people who go out to vote, and there is the reason that the APC has consistently won the majority of contests at all levels since 2023. There is a reason for that. They make a lot of noise claiming that Nigerians don’t like the APC. But every time an election is called, the APC wins. Look at the Ekiti State governorship election and the margin of our victory.

We even completely blew to pieces the previous record in the distance between us and others. Where were the NDC, the ADC and the Labour Party (LP) in that election? We are nullifying their lies with records of achievements, and Nigerians are feeling that. In every society, it is the vocal minority who are very empty that make the loudest noise.

Somebody confident, who understands where they stand, who is benefiting from the government, does not need to go online every day to rant. It is those who never do well, who never believe that anything is positive about their country, who just want to condemn everything about the country, who are the ones online every day waiting for one to make a post to comment nonsense.

One person will comment a million times, and you think that the country is on fire. The country is not on fire, and when elections come, the real Nigerians will go out to the polls and vote with their PVCs. That is what I know, by the grace of God, will happen in 2027.

As for my fears, I have said that we don’t have any major fear, and I said that whatever fears you may mention, or we normally have going into an election, we are working day and night to nullify or transform those concerns.

We are ahead in doing our homework like a diligent student going into an examination who has a schedule to read, study, not just course content, but also outside the scope, to gain knowledge of related subjects and the field of study; don’t panic when the exam comes.

The student will definitely do better than the ones who have been partying and clubbing. When you are diligent in building and in prosecuting your case, especially when you have the facts on your side, most likely you come out on top.

Won’t it be overconfidence that APC is sticking to a Muslim-Muslim ticket again?

Tell me exactly what the Muslim-Muslim ticket has done to Nigeria? How has the Muslim-Muslim ticket affected Nigerians negatively for them to now reject the ticket?

That language of Muslim-Muslim ticket was the language of the 2023 election invented by the opposition to discredit the candidacy of our party. That language today is no longer current. Anybody speaking that language today is just a mischief-maker. It is not relevant today because, since the administration of President Tinubu and Shettima, both Muslims, nobody has gone to the National Assembly or anywhere to sponsor a bill to force any Nigerian to become Muslim.

That was the argument, and the fear then. Otherwise, Senator Shettima, the incumbent vice president, is a brilliant citizen of this republic and a loyal citizen. He has done his job as vice president. Stood by the President and created very little or zero controversy for the President. He has discharged the duties of his office diligently, professionally, and to the delight of APC and Nigerians without any scandal associated with him.

I don’t think that there is a Nigerian today who is going to say they are not going to vote because a man who has been vice president for four years is a Muslim. Was he supposed to change his religion in four years? No Nigerian expected that. Right now, all that story about political viability based on religious consideration is utterly nonsensical.

Nigerians are looking at substance, and the quality of the leaders that they have, and so far, the combination of the president and his vice president has been stellar. They have achieved what many presidents in the history of our country didn’t achieve in two terms. And if you combine some precedents, what they didn’t achieve over a long period of time, this president has done in four years. That is remarkable.

Can you dispel the fears in some people’s minds that with insecurity, APC’s closeness to INEC, and by extension the judiciary, the 2027 election has been concluded or may not hold?

That is not the question I would like to answer because there is no basis for it. There is nothing that has happened or in the making which suggests that there will be no election in 2027. That is a nonsensical speculation. Secondly, when you say APC’s closeness to the judiciary and to INEC, under the Constitution of the Federal Republic and the Act setting up INEC that created the process by which the Chairman of INEC and commissioners are appointed, APC did not invent that legal procedure for the appointment of senior officials of INEC.

It is wrong to frame that question in relation to APC as though the APC did something to procure what you call closeness, because by closeness I understand you to be referring to a process for the appointment of those senior officials.

Again, if you say teleguiding, you have to prove that APC is teleguiding them because I don’t understand what you mean by saying teleguiding. APC does not teleguide, has never teleguided, and does not plan to teleguide in the future. So, when you say teleguiding, that is actually a very subjective, accusatory language, and it is actually condescending because you are saying that a national institution like the INEC can be teleguided.

You are saying that eminent Nigerians who are called upon to serve in those institutions of the judiciary and INEC are teleguided. You are suggesting that Judges from High Courts to the Supreme Court are being teleguided. That is rude and insolent for those institutions, and I take very strong exception to that.

Was the perceived crisis in APC after primaries real or speculation? Again, did the Electoral Act that stopped aspirants from contesting primaries in two political parties affect APC more than the opposition parties?

Nobody stopped anybody from leaving our party. Assuming without conceding that the Electoral Act made provisions that made it difficult or impossible for someone who contested a primary in one party to go to another party, how is that the business of the APC? That is a national law. That is a statute. That is the law of the land passed by the National Assembly and signed into law.

If APC is affected, every other party is affected. There is no such thing as APC was affected. It is a law that applies uniformly to all political parties. Whatever you are analysing in relation to APC was also present in relation to other parties. APC cannot be made to take the rap for that.

APC did not pass the law; a multi-party National Assembly passed that law, and whatever the effect may be, it is universal to all parties. You can’t isolate APC and say it was affected more than others. No, APC may be affected to the degree of its membership, to the degree of the expression of interest in its platform, but that is not anything APC did.

That is just a proportional thing. If anybody was affected at all, and like I said earlier, I am not conceding the premise of your question. I am only responding hypothetically that if you say that APC was affected more, I am saying that every other party was affected to the extent of the number of their membership or the extent of their people who express an interest to run on the platform.

Having seen the presidential candidates of other parties, Peter Obi, Atiku, did they pose any threat to Tinubu?

They pose no threat. Why would they pose any threat? Peter Obi poses no threat; Atiku poses no threat because these are not individuals who have even started to tell Nigerians why they are running for the office of president. Simply being flippant in condemning President Tinubu does not give or confer any basis or ground on which Nigeria should think of them as an alternative to the President.

These individuals you mentioned, Atiku and Peter Obi or any other person out there, simply dreaming about the presidency, have not even started the process because to start the process of offering yourself to be president, you must first articulate your vision for the country.

You must first articulate a programme that you are offering to Nigerians, and because there is an incumbent president who is contesting, you must articulate not just your programme and vision, but also articulate them in relation to the vision and programmes of the incumbent president. You must tell Nigerians what is the difference between you, what you are offering, and what the incumbent president is offering.

You must tell them how you are going to do the economy better. You must tell them how you are going to create power better. You must tell them how you are going to provide security better. On all the relevant factors of consideration, you must demonstrate that you have superior alternative ideas for Nigerians to take you seriously; unless and until you do that, you are not to be taken seriously by Nigerians.

I know that Nigerians don’t take Peter Obi seriously. He only has a bunch of noisemakers online who tell him what he wants to hear, but Nigerians in the inclusive sense cannot possibly take Peter Obi seriously when he cannot even answer correctly how he is going to provide electricity. He only responded, ‘Trust me’.

The response ‘trust me’ is not a political programme, political identity, superior political offering, and does not distinguish him from the President. How will Nigerians trust him when there is a man in the office who has demonstrated capacity, delivered and exceeded expectations on so many levels? You want Nigerians to leave empirical achievements to enter a dark world of ‘trust me’ nonsensical promise by Peter Obi.

How do you dispel the impression that Nigerians don’t like the APC?

It is not just an impression but a concocted impression to gaslight Nigerians, which is not working. We are a political party, and we know that those with that impression want to use it to score a cheap political point. The point I am making is: how do you situate the impression that Nigerians don’t like the APC with our long, consistent record of electoral victory?

I don’t need to say much, but if you take the elections conducted since 2023 into consideration, all the people that voted in those elections are Nigerians who chose the APC among the competing political parties.

So, anything else they say outside the electoral process that gives the APC consistent victories is simply idle talk from people who don’t know what to say or how to respond to the APC. They don’t speak on behalf of Nigerians.

They are speaking from the abundance of their own folly, not speaking on behalf of Nigerians. They speak through the polls, which have consistently delivered the APC as the preferred party of choice and party to beat. And come 2027, they will vote the APC to confirm how the ruling party has convinced them.

In the real sense of it, there will not be any competition for the APC in 2027. They are noisemakers and people who think that they are entitled to be President because, in their lifetime, they have contested the presidency, lost serially, and still think they cannot retire until they become President.

Look at Peter Obi raising the alarm that they are trying to kill him, and I wonder: since when did this extreme sort of childish sentiment become political capital? Who will go to the poll and vote based on an adult whining like a baby? Who does that? Nobody