 Pitao Bi or Tom Duke and others meet Wike in rivers and allow 7 million Nigerians complete voter registration. Serap tells Ainik. This is Plus Politics and I am Mary Annacol. Labour Party presidential candidate Pitao Bi has again visited the River State Governor Nyesung Wike in his private residence as the 2023 elections draw closer. This time the former governor of Cross River State Donald Duke, Governor Samuel Otama Benway and Okazie Iqbazu of Abbey Estate among other top politicians and statesmen in the South-South region were also at that meeting. Residents and social media users have expressed mixed reactions to the growing political bond between Wike and Orbi as the photographs of the said meeting are currently going viral, describing it as a good development. Orbi visit is coming amid a thickened crisis between Governor Wike and the People's Democratic Party presidential candidate former vice president Atikua Bubaka following the outcome of the party's presidential election and his choice of the Delta State Governor Ifai Okowa as running mate. Well joining us to discuss this is Dr Unisa Salisu-Tanko. He is the National Chairman, NCP and the Spokesman for the NC Front. Thank you so much doctor for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Great. Let's get right into it. For want of a better way to describe this situation or this love relationship between the governor of River State and that of Dr Pitao Bi who obviously are from two different political parties what exactly would you be saying is going on here? Well you see in politics you don't have enemies but you have permanent interests and in permanent interests you reach out to even those who are assumed to be your enemy at a particular point in time when this question comes out you end up being your best friend so as a candidate who is running for election it is very good to reach out to everybody those who you come not to be part of you and those who are part of you your friends and your assumed enemy so at the end of it all nobody would say you have not reached out to him or her so what you see is happening in our political life is the capacity of our candidate Pitao Bi to have that capacity to be able to reach out to all friends and say hey look at this situation I have this particular capacity and I can turn the fate of Nigeria the fate of Nigeria from a consumption nation to a production nation so please why don't you come on board and join me so that we can be we make history for Nigeria so it's as simple as that. So you're telling me that Dr Obi is trying to get a staunch PDP member like the governor of River State a former governor of Cross River State Donald Duke and several other people in those meetings to join forces with him even when they are members of a very known strong political party who also have a strong presidential candidate because from what you're saying you say he wants to do this and he's asking them to come on board there's coming on board me jumping ship no there's nothing wrong with that just like I explained to you you see what I think is about you reaching out to people and by the time you reach out to people people who must have misunderstand some of your motives and you explain to them chest to face they may be able to come to come on this on the table or table with you but so that is what is simply playing out because if you say you will stay alone and then take other people as your enemy what you will have is that they will be injurious to what you are trying to do so instead of them being injurious to you why don't you take them along so that all of them can be friends but this is a game of numbers they the PDP does have a presidential candidate the members of the PDP ought to be working for their presidential candidate because they also all want to that revert seats which is the presidency and I'm wondering if these people are seen hobnobbing continuously with a member of another political party who is also a presidential candidate of course tongs will you know tongs will wag again if the Labour Party say we want to break the old God and bring in a new God why hobnob with the old God well let me explain something to you there is one word that they use in politics they call it campaign campaign is your ability to be able to convince those who believe in you and those who do not believe in you to come along with you so that you can work together then as another word they call consultation consultation simply mean you'll be able to tell somebody that I'm doing this ABCD for this for this particular reason and in that case I think you will play a better part with me than with the other person so that what consultation is so what you are seeing going on is is consultation and reaching out and don't forget Peter will be had been one time friends to these people that this is called allies they've been discussing politics before so there's not too wrong with him reaching out to them in fact it shows his capacity his sagacity his articulation and his personal interaction with the people that he knows and trying to drag them together with him for the prosperity of this country that's one of the most horrible way of politics hmm okay um governor autumn uh bernie stage was uh questioned by some pressman about um his meeting uh with the labor party candidate doctor or peter b now according to governor autumn he said he didn't necessarily see exactly why they met but he did say that um there was nothing wrong with meeting with mr b he also said that at the end the solution to the challenges of nigeria is what matters where we are today calls for all hands on deck um i mean this is this is subject to all kinds of interpretation but i'll let you do the interpretation if you had any idea what you meant well uh governor otama said it all that no single person can provide solution to the problem of nigeria so it is best that all of us come together believe me nigeria is in the park mya and we need all hands on deck to bring our best 11 to be able to solve the problem on ground so so that is why um our own presidential candidate from repeater obi is playing it by partisan campaign and consulting and consultation reaching out to all friends and saying that look i am just a subject ready to be used for the emancipation of the netherian people and there's no better time than now so it's reaching out to his friends it's very up i solved of no lucia gumi miko i solved from the thumb combo and all of them have worked together before so if they have worked together they must have been thinking about problem of nigeria and today if that's the article that they saw them them that is what they are trying to look for solution and then support the best candidate and we believe yaguri will be the best candidate to do this work let's talk about the politics of the people in fact the host of that meeting the politics around the host of that meeting the governor of river state government yes and we care and all that has been going on within you know the pdp um now we all know that there seems to be a somewhat of a running battle between him and the presidential flag bearer of his party and his hub nubbing with the labor party candidate has made people wonder if there might be you know an opening for him to want to move to the labor party even though he has said publicly that he would not leave his party but if there were an opportunity would the labor party be opening its doors to governor wiki well for us is about changing the narrative in nigeria and anybody who believes that we are time for everybody to come together to rescue nigeria is welcome the conglomerate of the national consultative fund who adopted labor party on the 22nd of may and then the coming in of beta will be on the 27th of may and the influence of various different groups of all nigerians has made us stronger it doesn't belong to one in one particular person but for the whole nigerian and so therefore if anybody who decided to change now and come into our force and see trading the same message we are changing nigeria for a consumption nation to a production nation is welcome i want to take you up on something you just said you said if they decide to change so you think that you think that the pdp in its 16 years of running this country without change whatever you would want to itemize or call that or the apc who's still in power without change would all of a sudden overnight change because they want to join the labor party i'm trying to understand what you mean by change then join you what does that mean exactly exactly you see the labor party and the obedient movement is out to rescue nigeria and we have a mantra consumption to production we are masses driven we want to change the labor issue of nigeria where strike cannot take a supreme position in nigeria we want to change the position of our insecurity nation we want to change the economic situation of this country we want to change the educational system of this country we want to change the inflow of electric and power supply into nigeria we want to change so that anytime you move out of this country you'll be recognized as an indigent of a country that has integrity and name these are some of the things we want to give to them and we want to give nigeria back to the nanzirian people so anybody who believe in this particular insistence he is welcome to join us i i i what i hear you might correct me if you want um how do you change how do you pour new wine into old wine skin because this is what i'm hearing they decide to change and this is going to only happen just in a few months that we have before 2023 how truthful is that change and how realistic is it again you know like i said like i said these are the people who have brought us to where we are right now practically on our knees and these are the same people you want to bring into the fold what difference does it make exactly now when you want to change in the old wine you bring a new packaging you may add some neutral ingredients into it as you make it better and and taste sweeter and then at the end of it or what do they become it become a new product exactly what we are trying to do so when everybody comes with his own good ideas that can help to change the dynasty of this country change the narrative of this country from the old order to a new order all kind of new ingredients must be put into that bottle and that ingredient is what we are putting into this particular old bottle to make it new beautiful and more atrophy and revamp Nigeria for the benefit of the Nigerian people let's move on to other matters um we have seen several people call out the obedient movement for um gas lighting and um being rude or hash to people who do not necessarily support their cause now you've continuously in this interview told me what you think that the or what you know the Labor Party is after and what changes they want to bring now how can we have that change if the people who support who stand for these change do not have a character reformation of sorts is is is the Labor Party also prioritizing how issues are being dealt with now what I have said over the over the years and what we represent we have a document of agenda which has been submitted to Osborne by the TUC and they are submitted one by the NLC the Labor Party has this manifesto so everybody anybody who wants to lead us must work within the documents that have been presented as a working document that is our guide and the principle of the Labor Party is doing care if mass is driven socialist in the nature democratic social so that it can emancipate the Nigerian people from the shuffle of poverty so we have a guide it's not about the individual but there's a document that will guide you into getting into that particular I'd like to push you further in terms of the people that you have as a movement I mean I see that you have widespread movement to from all parts of the across across the country I always try to have every political party tell me how much they're doing in terms of voter sensitization voter education not just about getting their pvcs but knowing where to vote where their polling units are of course INEC has a duty to you know do that but then political parties have that mandate of voter education but hardly do we see political parties voter educate we see more of mud slinging and of course bad mouthing what is the labor party willing to do differently from the status quo well I'm talking about voter education and voter sensitization we see a lot of people that are you know following your movement but then what is the labor party doing in sensitizing people not just about getting your pvc but much more as much as knowing where your ward is your polling unit what you need to do when you get there as opposed to what the other political parties do fantastic thank you very much we have one hundred and seventy four thousand six hundred and nine hundred and something polling units the labor party has done something that is so wonderful just recently and I and I and I want to say nobody who party has done so at the moment they mobilized their leadership of the NWC under the leadership of barista abori and the secretarieship of barista and alaji umar prime follow they divided the country into six zones and moved out everybody to go and have a town hall meeting we just came back from the north west we told the north west with the leadership of uh the prime follow umar we were in so koto kebi lamfara katena kanu jigawa and kaduna it is it will amaze you to know all of this visit that we went to before we were full packed down and that was when we educated people about our candidates once he believes in that he wants to run a clean and clear campaign the world of moon sliding name calling and name backbiting but major on on issue based campaign and at that point also we educate the mass people about the logo of the party and what is represent what is mama papa i'm picking and we are giving them all around the same thing was done in all the other six o'gavigas zone trying to let them understand that the labor party stands for equity fairness and justice and then at that point i saw a lot of marvelous events i met a lady called aisha she was in zhomfara same and then she she's a physically talented person she said to us she had never been happy in her life because she has seen hope for nigeria so imagine a physically talented person both for peter obi we are home and dry and that is the same way we saw the billboard of peter obi and that she honored reigning high in so-called states and blame it even one other ones who have been destroyed you saw only that you will be obi obi and that uh what um what do i call billboard still standing that is the nature of how we are received received everywhere in this country so therefore it made it easy for us to use the number of support groups that we have because we have them in hundreds and we keep on telling them the battle ground is at the polling unit we need to add the polling unit and we keep on educating them and this will continue you cannot imagine the milestone the kind of um mileage we've gotten from this show the sensitization and mobilization will continue because as we spoke other people are speaking to others others are speaking to another and the whole nigeria is getting agog because they are tired they've tested the blue they've got the green they have seen what it's like but now they want to cocktail into a capable driver okay with an assistant driver that had the capacity to drive them to asu rock and change the narrative of this country and that is brita and that you will be finally before i let you go doctor um there was an unconfirmed report uh that allegedly the most recently pardoned um joshua darye was about to pick a senatorial ticket uh with the labor party and that again did raise eyebrows so i'm going to go straight to my question um what is the guarantee that people like this or maybe power hungry persons as opposed to people who truly want to serve nigeria don't take advantage of the labor party and the goodwill of the people towards your presidential candidate well we are careful and that is why we are guided by the document of of the labor party at the manifesto and the tvc document and that of the nlc because the target is for the people not the individuals as long as we do what is right for the interest of the people everybody will be a beneficiary of it so the idea of somebody taking advantage will not even come up at all because what we are doing is for the interests of the world because let's even look at it if they are secured you can move from kaduna to kanu from kaduna to abuja or any part of this country is this only to the benefit of myself alone and for the benefit of everybody or if the education of nandiria has been transformed we are also people will not be able to go into a strike and a child can go to school in four years and come out with quality education is it the benefit of danku or ob not even the benefit of all if the economy of this country can change from being a consumption nation to a production nation who will be economically advantage is the nandirian people this is exactly what we are saying so in all setter of our life we are trying to change it for the betterment of our people so if you want to take advantage of it take advantage of it for the benefit of your unborn child that is the change in which you are talking about okay well i want to say thank you uh dr tanko unisa is the national chairman of the ncp and spokesperson for nc francis also a member of the labor party thank you so much doctor for joining us god bless the sardari public of nandiria thank you thank you all right thank you for staying with us we'll take a quick break and when we come back we'll take a look at yesterday's conversation between sarab and of course ainec of course sarab was suing ainec over the continuous voters registration exercise we'll be back after this break