Sunday, April 5, 2026, was the Resurrection Sunday when our Lord and Saviour, Jesus, rose from the dead. It was, therefore, a great commemorative day for us as we gathered in Churches to celebrate and give God thanks. But something else happened too: The APC National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Felix Morka, was on TV, with Seun Akinbolaye of Channels as his host. It was a significant outing, and I urge Nigerians, irrespective of partisanship, to watch the interview on YouTube.
To the teeming members of the overflowing APC Family, it will give them joy and pride that their official mouthpiece can cut through the maze of opposition gimmicky and deliberate obfuscation to tell Nigerians the unvarnished truth. And members of opposition parties too, especially the ADC, listening to the Morka Interview will enable them to have a clearer understanding of the avoidable mess that the ADC invited upon itself via nonchalance and, perhaps, suicidal longings.
Morka has the reputation of a confident and deliberate speaker who articulates his points with clear, concise coherent and unassailable facts. And he couches them in grammatical finesse. In other words, Morka’s media outings are devoid of circumlocution, verbosity, ambiguities, sophistry, bombast, ambivalence, emotionalism or a recourse to rabble-rousing. But last Sunday, Morka matched that reputation, and then out-did himself. His candour, his clarity, his delivery, his composure, his marshalling of his points, his photographic memory and his effortless churning of facts all added to his stellar performance.
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But that was not all – his sharp mental reflexes were on display too, and he deployed these to deftly dissect political mischief from factual messaging. Plus, he as well firmly refused to have political blackmail and brinkmanship brought to the exalted table of serious political
discourse. All these point to one thing i.e. the ruling party has made a good investment in the choice of the Harvard Alumnus for its strategic communications-cum-image-management role.
I have referred readers to the Morka Interview on YouTube, and I don’t want to kill the building suspense, but permit me tantalise you with these quotes: “The political predicament that the ADC has found itself in is self-inflicted. We have nothing to do with it. This latest round of confusion within that party resulted from a decision of the Court of Appeal in an appeal filed by the ADC itself. Morka, like most Nigerians, asked the natural question: “What exactly is the matter?” And he answered: “Now, apparently, ADC has a long-standing member of the party who was, in fact, the deputy national chairman of that party.”
But Morka was just warming up: “Now, fast-forward. When Atiku, David Mark and all of them parachuted into that party to take it over, they did so and apparently one of the members of the party felt aggrieved by the way and manner he was sidelined. This is because, according to him, in line with their constitution, he actually was the successor to the office when the then national chairman quit his position.” An ADC governorship candidate in Adamawa state, Sen. Ishaku Elisha Abbo, corroborated this when he agreed, a few days back, that Nafiu Bala Gombe was actually promised the position of Deputy National Chairman (North) before he resigned, but the new leadership ignored him, and rather gave the position to ex-SGF, Babachir Lawal!
According to Morka, the question Nigerians should be asking is how the ADC got itself into this legal quandary? Again, he answered most kindly and most insightfully: “It got to court because the party leaders failed miserably to engage effectively with that individual, apparently. “The court in dealing with an application for an interim injunction, ordered the ADC to show Cause why the application for injunction should not be granted.
He continued: “And the ADC, rather than show cause (and the court was very gracious in putting them on notice) as at September the 2nd when the case was filed, the ADC decided to rush to the Appeal Court to appeal what was not, in fact, appealable; there was nothing to appeal as there was no substantive order of court to appeal.” A bewildered Morka went on: “And in doing so, they did not seek the leave of court as it’s mandatory in all interlocutory matters. The ADC rushed to court without seeking the leave of court. That’s a blunder that’s unforgivable, completely hard to understand. Even a rookie lawyer will not make that mistake.”
Implying that mass or numbers don’t necessarily equate wisdom, Morka rued: “But here are these eminent citizens, highly experienced, vice president, governors, minsters… all of them put together could not instruct themselves to do the right thing which was to apply for leave.” He explained further: “And the Court of Appeal dismissed that appeal as it should. But the Court of Appeal also granted them a window by saying: ‘Go back to court, the Federal High Court, with an order of accelerated hearing, knowing fully well that the election season was around the corner.'”
Wondering about the strangeness of ADC next course of action, the APC national publicity scribe told Seun: “The ADC rather than go to the legal boardroom to figure out how to order its affairs and respond to this legal exigency, decided to go to the media to issue press conferences and press releases and all of that to castigate the APC, that we are responsible for their predicament.”
These quotes are tantalisers, appetizers that are meant to whet our appetites and prepare us for the main course: the Interview on YouTube. It’s a Must-Watch, a Must-Share and a Must-Discuss. But even without the video, even from just these snippets, as we say in the Tiv Country: “Dôcutô Felix Morka bee tom.” Translation: “Dr. Felix Morka has finished the work.”
He has diagnosed the ADC sickness correctly (and even jokingly suggested a prescription): One, after “parachuting” to the ADC high-table, the “twinkle-twinkle little stars” refused, neglected or failed to effectively engage all critical stakeholders. Two, and when the refusal/negligence eventuated in the courts, the ADC leadership chose loud press conferences over diligent court processes! On these twin-pillars rests the ADC quagmire. Its promise of replacing President Bola Tinubu with one of its own, Come May 39, 2027, has become powder. And its boasts of upstaging the APC from power have become sneering boos from an overwhelmingly skeptical public.
Let the Nigerian public beware. And so also the international community. We are fond of quoting the Chinese proverb that says: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” What we fail to understand is that that proverbial “first step” must be in the right direction.
Simon Imobo-Tswam, a retired newspaper editor and media adviser to two former PDP national chairmen, writes from Abuja.
