The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Felix Morka, has declared that President Bola Tinubu has performed better than every democratically elected president in Nigeria.
Morka made the claim on Monday during an interview on Channels Television, where he defended the Tinubu administration’s economic policies and record in office. According to the APC spokesman, Tinubu had surpassed the performance of previous elected presidents when measured against their respective first terms.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has outperformed any president in his first term. He has outperformed any democratically elected president in this country in their terms,” Morka said.
Asked to identify the indicators supporting his assessment, the APC spokesman pointed to what he described as evidence in the country’s economic situation. Morka argued that Tinubu inherited an economy in severe difficulty and that the administration’s reforms had begun to produce improvements at the macroeconomic level.
“The indicators are res ipsa loquitur, as we say in law; they speak for themselves. This president inherited an economy that was completely in a mess,” he said.
He attributed the economic challenges inherited by Tinubu to what he described as failures under previous administrations.
Morka particularly criticised the 16-year administration of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which preceded the APC’s emergence at the federal level in 2015. He described former President Muhammadu Buhari as a transitional figure who, according to him, helped prevent the country from sliding further into crisis before Tinubu assumed office.
“Buhari was a stopgap president that really came to keep the country from tipping over the precipice — from 16 years of horrific maladministration of the PDP government,” Morka said.
He added that Buhari’s administration provided the period in which the country was stabilised before the current president took over.
“President Buhari served his term, did his job to hold the country still for President Tinubu to enter.”
The APC spokesman maintained that policies introduced by the Tinubu administration had helped Nigeria move away from what he described as severe economic difficulties.
He said the reforms were producing improvements in the broader economy, even though their effects remained a subject of debate. Morka further argued that some of the administration’s critics were beginning to acknowledge the changes taking place.
According to him, Nigeria had now “come out of the woods” at the macroeconomic level as a result of the policies implemented by the Tinubu government. He maintained that the administration’s economic reforms should therefore be assessed against the condition of the economy inherited by Tinubu rather than solely on the immediate challenges confronting Nigerians.
