APC spokesman: Tinubu’s policies still ‘crawling’

Amid assurances from top figures within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s policies are already delivering results, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Barrister Felix Morka, has urged patience, saying it is still too early to determine when Nigerians will begin to feel the full impact of the administration’s reforms.

Morka made the remarks on Thursday while addressing journalists at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja during a press conference.

His comment appears to contradict recent assertions by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas; APC National Chairman, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje; and the Chairman of the Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF) and Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma. The leaders had, during a national summit of the party last week in Abuja, stated that Tinubu’s policies were already producing positive results and that Nigerians were living better under his administration.

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However, when asked to clarify when Nigerians would begin to feel the impact of government policies, Morka replied, “The child is crawling. Now, I don’t know what age. I can’t say.”

Expanding on the analogy, he said, “I think it varies from one child to the other. Some kids are faster than others. So, they crawl quicker. But irrespective of the time, children crawl—and crawling is what a child is expected to do before walking.

“So, I don’t think it’s an assessment of whether a child who is crawling is doing well. A child who is crawling is doing exactly what a child is expected to do: to crawl before they walk. So if a child is crawling, actually, if that’s your child, I think you should encourage the child to crawl.

“Because it’s by crawling that it’s strengthening their legs, and other parts of the body are strengthened to withstand the rigour of walking. You don’t need to encourage them to crawl.”

Commenting on the removal of petrol subsidy, Morka said previous administrations had avoided taking the difficult decision, preferring instead to “Postpone the doomsday.”

“All the presidents who came before this president preferred to simply postpone the doomsday,” he said. “We didn’t just wake up in the last two years to realise that fuel subsidy was a destructive device in our country. We didn’t.”

He insisted that President Tinubu removed the subsidy in the overall interest of the nation and dismissed suggestions that the APC had begun campaigning for Tinubu’s re-election. According to him, the recent endorsements of the president should not be mistaken for political campaigning.

On security, the APC spokesman described insecurity as a global phenomenon, saying: “Insecurity is a challenge that we face as a country, especially over the last 20 years,” thereby exonerating the Tinubu administration from sole responsibility for the crisis.

Morka’s remarks come amid mounting public frustration over worsening socio-economic conditions in the country. Many Nigerians continue to grapple with soaring inflation, unemployment, widespread hunger, and persistent insecurity.