Felix Morka, National Publicity Secretary, APC, has argued that President Bola Tinubu is not a president that dropped from outer space, but he is a successor in office to presidents who came before him.
Speaking in an interview with Arise News, Morka made this argument when he was asked about the flag-off of the APC campaign in Kaduna, where President Tinubu blamed opposition and previous administrations for creating hunger and poverty his government says it is working to eradicate.
He replied that at no point from past to present should anyone discount historical antecedents, causal or causative factors in the making of present reality.
He said if you ask him why he is not a trillionaire today, he can tell you his father was not even a millionaire, and if you ask him that after 10 years why he is not a trillionaire, he can still tell you he did not inherit money like some people did.
He said the government is a continuum, and when he is speaking in the context of a phenomenon like poverty, it has been endemic in Nigeria even before he was born. He said poverty is not actually an event or an activity, but it is endemic and has had time and gestation rooted in causal factors that even confound present understanding.
He said when President Tinubu says some of the opposition figures like Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi did not eradicate poverty when they were in government, it is true they did not eradicate poverty.
In his words, “Government is a continuum. This president is not a president that dropped from outer space. He is a successor in office to presidents who came before him.
So when he’s speaking in the context of a phenomenon like poverty that has been endemic in our country, even before I was born, we had some level of poverty prevailing.”
“Before you were born, the same thing. You see, my point is that when you speak about poverty, poverty is not actually, you know, an event or an activity.”
You can watch the video (23:26 to 23:57 minutes).