…Says his party building arsenal to compete, defeat unknown opponent

From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Felix Morka, Barrister, solicitor, politician, civil right activist, Harvard Law School trained, National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and former Legal Director of Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), could aptly be described as an anthology of many distinct features rolled into one and a man with many parts.

Fielding questions from Sunday Sun in Abuja, Morka delved into a wide range of political, economic, and insecurity issues playing out in the country. Specifically, he spoke on the presumed role of the APC in the crises rocking the opposition parties, his perception of the chances of his party emerging victorious in the 2027 presidential election, arguing that the APC-led Federal Government has silenced its critics with sound economic policies.

How do you personally feel about the crisis rocking the opposition parties?

The crisis unfolding in some of the opposition political parties in the country is fundamentally self-inflicted. They are dealing with very long-standing failure to evolve a culture of leadership that meets the standards and expectations of political parties in a democracy.

For the People Democratic Party (PDP), the chickens are merely coming home to roost because of its decades of very irresponsible, reckless culture of impunity and lawlessness. As the ruling party of Nigeria, they were simply unwilling to submit to basic constitutional democratic ideals.

It was a party of dictation. Their internal practices were anti-democratic. If you were a leader in the PDP, you were a lord. Those who governed the PDP had unchecked authority and power to do anything, to point fingers and say, you are the candidate or you are this or that.

They didn’t bother to deepen these ideals and tenets of democracy in that party. So, what you see in 2025 didn’t happen in 2025; it happened as far back as 1999, all through those entire stages when the party was in power. The only reason they maintained a semblance of normalcy was that they had executive authority.

They were able to basically nurture what was already a flawed system and kept it. It was a patchwork that carried them to this day. But the last 10 years, when it has been out of power, have revealed all of the terrible things and damage they had done, which is why the party is all over the place and why the centre is no longer able to hold. What is happening is because what would have kept and held the party together, strictly speaking, was never preserved. The party is unravelling as it should. And your question is not about whether anybody is happy about that because happiness has nothing to do with it. It is just the reality of it.

A party should justify itself; a party that governed for nearly two decades should not be in this level of disarray and in tatters. It just shows that something went wrong for a very long time. We are witnessing this moment in the PDP, and, for that matter, in the other parties, whether it is the Labour Party (LP), we can see all of the horrific instability that they are experiencing.

But what I find funny is that rather than these people coming to terms with this self-inflicted problem and figure out smart ways of ameliorating the damage they have done and trying to turn the party in a new direction, they indulge in some senseless, vain critique of the APC.

They would rather blame the APC for their problems than sit down like men to figure that out. Look at the new chairman, who was just installed a few days after his announcement as the factional chairman, was calling on foreign powers to invade Nigeria and take over.

That is not the mindset of a leader who is in tune with the challenges his party is confronted with. He is simply just being escapist, blaming some imaginary enemy for their problem rather than looking inwards to admit that they have a problem. And very disgracefully, recently, we saw him claiming to be awarding certificates of expulsion.

Who does that? Who, in his right mind, does that as a leader? He was the one celebrating what is clearly proven to be the demise of the PDP. He is dramatically celebrating the total dismemberment of his party. He doesn’t just get it.  Certificate of expulsion! Printed in red to signify what?

That is almost like something you don’t even expect from a kindergarten, yet this is the man who claims to be the new chairman of the PDP, acting like a boy, a school child that has not even seen anything about the world.

He is not acting like a man whose most important conception of duty should be to see how to heal his party, how to bring who is fighting who or whatever is going on their party, and make an attempt to say, I am the chairman, now, everybody, please, let us get together and see what the crises are and try to figure it out.

That ought to be his secret first sacrosanct duty as chairman, not to first declare that democracy is gone in Nigeria. If democracy is gone, what the heck is he doing as chairman? He should have resigned already. If democracy is actually gone in Nigeria, then he thinks foreign powers should come and intervene in Nigeria; then the first thing he should have done before he made that statement was actually to offer his resignation.

He should say I don’t think there is a democratic space for me to actually operate. You cannot be claiming to be chairman of the PDP and be arguing that there is no democracy in Nigeria and be expelling those you met in the party. The PDP is simply feasting on the abundance of the wrecked and wretched menu that he has cooked.

How do you feel about Nigerians believing that APC is the unseen hand fuelling the crisie rocking the opposition parties?

Those Nigerians who think so are idle spectators, and they don’t know what is going on. They should go and scratch the surface of the crisis rocking the PDP to find out that everything about the crisis in the party is domiciled in the PDP. Again, I have said this over and over again, and I won’t dignify this line of argument with even any serious response.

For those blaming APC for what is going on in PDP, why is it so difficult for them to come forward with some substantiation of their claims? Is that so hard to ask for if you think APC has a hand? Why don’t you just say whatever led you to that conclusion if you have any? Why are they unable to articulate or present some type of circumstantial evidence?

For them, the only circumstantial suggestion is that since the APC is the ruling party, it must be the one behind it. That is insane, just stupid, and I don’t dignify that with any sort of response.

Would you say that there is peace in the APC fold?

Yes, we have peace in the APC. The APC is the most peaceful, cohesive party today in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I am not very sure of what you even mean by a peaceful party.

I am not sure what that means; however, I will say that the APC is the most cohesive party because when you talk about peace, you almost suggest that peace is the absence of war or conflict. I will rather speak about cohesion because that is more appropriate.

Some will tell you that PDP is peaceful, apart from some of the show of shame we witness, people throwing punches, but I can tell you that APC is a very cohesive party. But, does that mean that we don’t have issues and disagreements in the party? It doesn’t mean that, and that is why I said that peaceful is really not the way to describe an institution like a party.

I would rather say that we are very cohesive and handle conflicts that may arise with some level of maturity, which is hard to find in the opposition parties. When we deal with issues like that, we are very, very intentional about stepping out to really mediate and solve those problems.

And that is why you have a lot of people from within the opposition rightly abandoning their parties to join the APC. It is because nobody wants to waste a lifetime in a party that is without direction and without any control system. So, yes, we are very happy with our party and what it is doing, not just to offer governance in Nigeria but also to engage in the democratic space.

If there is peace in APC, why has it become difficult to reconcile the warring factions, especially in some states like Delta, Enugu?

No faction is disrupting the party in Delta and in Enugu states. The other name for democracy is contestation. When people contend, have competing interests, resulting in each person or each side trying to push or advance the argument, it is not anything that should raise any sort of existential concern.

Those concerns begin when the system of governance becomes incapable of modulating those competitions. For instance, in Osun State, right now, we have several aspirants that just submitted their nomination forms. I bet that if you go to Osun now, you are going to see one group moving left, another group moving right, jostling for support.

From an outsider’s perspective, you might think there is a lot of heat going on in the state. But that is the nature of democracy. It is, by that kind of movement, that kind of jostling and positioning, persuading, and even debates, that the people get the opportunity to see all the sides to all of the possibilities of those who are putting themselves forward to govern, and can then make their decisions.

So, what we have in Delta was normal, the erstwhile PDP governor of my state joined our party with all of his followers and supporters, of which we are very happy that they joined, and thereby strengthening our party, enlarging, and expanding our party’s prospects of victory in the next election in the state.

We are very happy about that. But naturally, when people move into a party like that, you are bound to have those who are speaking on the side of the movement, and those who have reservations, or those who are waiting for perfection to emerge.

However, I think we are doing well in Delta. All of the issues that arose as a result of the governor and his people, joining the party, are being addressed at the highest levels.

We are very confident that in the coming weeks and months, all of those issues already anticipated will be resolved ahead of the election.

You said that those defecting to the APC are eager to secure their political future, but does that imply that you are comfortable with Nigeria sliding into a one party state?

I don’t know how you get to that point or suggest that Nigeria is sliding into a one-party state. What gave you that impression that the country is sliding into a one-party state? What has happened to warrant such a conclusion? PDP governed this country for years with upwards of 28 or 29 or 30 state governors, but give me a headline where anybody seriously expressed fear that the country had slid into a one-party state.

Why was there no fear then and how come it didn’t happen? If it didn’t happen then, why should the fact that people are joining the APC become the basis to express the fear that the country is turning into a one-party state? If we have passed that path where the PDP, at that time, governed Nigeria with those many governors without any hysteria about one one-party state, why now?

That is not a serious conversation to have. Anybody who understands politics, democracy, and constitutionalism will know that one one-party state is not something anybody can wish into existence.

A one-party system would require a far-reaching, legal, constitutional, administrative, and very drastic change, not just the laws, but also our Constitution and administrative outlook, for a one-party state to ever become a possibility.

How do the governors leaving their parties to join APC signal the emergence of a one-party state? That is a ridiculous argument. Is that how a one-party state is created? No, it is not. Again, I don’t waste my time giving too much attention to that sort of controversy, which doesn’t even exist. There is no basis to suggest that the country is sliding into a one-party state.

The President has said or done nothing to suggest that there is an effort in the National Assembly or State Assembly to orchestrate a Constitutional evolution into a one-party state. So, why would anybody just think that?

What is your take on the impression by many Nigerians that the 2027 presidential election is going to be a stroll in the park for President Tinubu, considering the volume of defections into the APC?

What I can tell you is that we, at the APC, are preparing for the upcoming political season. We are getting ready and getting our systems up and running to compete. We want to reach out to all Nigerians and explain to them, show them why they should support the APC, this president, all our elected officers, and those seeking elective offices to win their votes and bring us to a multi-track victory in the next election.

That is what we are doing. So, anybody speculating or insinuating should know that this President is a hard worker. He is determined to go out there and campaign for the votes of Nigerians. We are taking nothing for granted. This President is taking nothing for granted. We are not resting on our oars.

We are working hard, and when the time comes, we are going to set up our campaign outfits and go out there to justify ourselves by asking for the support of Nigerians to the last vote. That is what we are going to do. We are not into all this speculation and forecasting.

The way you sounded shows that you are not expecting any stiff competition against President Tinubu…

That is not what it implied. When a football team is training for a match against an opponent, does the team downgrade the intensity of its training style because it is expecting a weak opponent? No. A good coach knows how to prepare his team to play any opponent. Quite frankly, you may not even know who you are playing against. You may not know what is coming. But who you are playing against is irrelevant and should not determine the quality of the training.

We are prepared. We, as a political party, are preparing to run an election, and whoever joins the race, whatever party, whatever individuals may join, nobody knows the line-up here. Those who we think may run may not run, and those we think may not, may end up running. We don’t care about all that; all that is irrelevant right now.

I am speaking of our own preparation, and without any consideration as to who and the party we might be up against. I am saying that we know for sure that 2027 will come by the grace of God and that we will engage in an election, and I am saying that as a party, we are focusing on building our own arsenal in readiness to compete for votes. I was not thinking of the person we are going to contest against, but rather of winning.

What are your fears for the 2027 presidential election from the realities on ground?

I don’t know what you mean by fears. Nurse fears about what? As I said, when you work hard, justify yourself, and prepare well for any kind of contest, sports, or election, your focus should be on how to prepare and get yourself ready. That is what we are doing. When you prepare well, you really don’t have anything to fear because you will go there and give the best account of yourself, hoping that people will hear and give you all the consideration you expect. You only hope for the best.

Therefore, the issue of fear is not on my radar, and I don’t know how to assess fear. All I know is how to prepare. I don’t fear, and that is what the APC is doing. We are preparing hard, and we are working hard.

This President has justified himself by today’s mark to make himself re-electable. I have no doubt that based on the record of his government, Nigerians, including those who were very sceptical at the beginning, when the policies were rolled out, seemed like this is momentarily difficult for Nigeria.

Many of those people are beginning to see the other side and where the President was coming from, and where he is going. The signs have become clearer, two years on, that those decisions were not mistakes. They were thought through and timed.

That is why you now see the position becoming completely muffled and disconcerted in their critique. They don’t know what to say anymore. At the beginning, when the policies were rolled out, it was economy, economy, and economy. Now, they have gone mute because the economy is now speaking for itself, and they are no longer as vocal as they used to be. They have all parked their load and moved into the bushes to incite the security. They are going to fall flat on their faces as usual, as they did on the economy. This country will overcome terror, banditry, criminality, and kidnapping.

Nigerians deserve to live in peace, and they will live in peace. Nigerians deserve to thrive and flourish; our children deserve to go to school without fear of getting picked up by these forces of evil. We must live in peace and security.

One thing about the human condition is that the conception of crime begins and ends in the darkest recesses of the human mind. It is not a poster, a billboard where you see somebody working on the street as a criminal. No. There is no app designed to decipher what is in the mind of a human.

When people stay back in their homes or inside the bushes and those horrific spaces to plan evil and execute it, the country bleeds. It is right that in many countries of the world, the enforcement system and security system usually lag behind criminal elements or enterprises because behind, they can get a break, get information, and allow them to know before they are executed.

But the fact of the matter is that those who mean to do a crime will attempt to do so. Sometimes they succeed, other times they don’t. This is why what we are witnessing is not unique to Nigeria.

Many other countries, even in the developed world, are still contending against terror, crime, as we are in Nigeria. Nigeria should appreciate the fact that we are not alone in this because we are not living in an isolated world where we are just alone as victims of crime.

It happens everywhere around the world, even in the most advanced countries with massive resources and technology, and military capacity. They still contend with these evil phenomena. We are dealing with an unfair share of that in our country because we really don’t deserve this.

This government has demonstrated the will to fight back and secure this country. We will win that fight. The recent involvement of the US President and some of the efforts to bring those concerns to the table for rational conversation are showing this government as one well-structured and positioned to not just protect Nigerians but also to engage the actors to explore workable solutions to the problems we are dealing with.

Terror is an international crime, not a domestic one. It has an international dimension that other countries may do well to help Nigeria to defeat. We are on our way, hopefully to greater and more peaceful times ahead.

Do you see insecurity and northern hostilities affecting Tinubu’s re-election in the 2027 presidential election?

Insecurity has been an ongoing challenge in our country, and as I said, no Nigerian deserves to feel unsafe anywhere. This government is determined to help Nigerians to live in peace and security. Those who promote terror will rather target innocent and vulnerable people in villages.

What I think we need to do more is to reorient Nigerians to understand that this is our only country. We cannot, out of political motivations or partisan interests, begin to go against the interests of the country. We are shooting ourselves on the foot. It may sound good to you today because you are on the other side of the political divide, but it will definitely come home to roost.

When you watch the social media space, for example, and see the speed at which Nigerians retweet and share information about what bandits say or did not say, and how they also do so every time our gallant forces suffer casualties, it discourages. The way some Nigerians disgracefully and unpatriotically condemn, vilify, and mock those who put their lives in the line of fire for our safety, while glamourizing terror, is very wrong.

As Nigerians, we need to think and do better. People are attacking and taking the children hostage, and we take our gadgets to write things that appear to celebrate those attacking the country, just because we don’t like the height or colour of those in government.

I find it shocking about some of our people, and we need to think and do better because one important ingredient to defeat terror is standing together and fighting as a people. We must speak with one voice through primarily defending the lives and liberty of our people, irrespective of political affiliation.