These are the top five stories you should be monitoring today.

The governor of Kaduna, Nasir El-Rufai Thursday, denied attacking the Founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, over his comments on Nigeria’s economic plan – which he said left out human capital development.

“A few weeks ago, when Microsoft founder, Bill Gates came to Nigeria and appealed to the Nigerian government to invest more in education, I made a comment that was reported widely as attacking Bill Gates. It was not an attack on Bill Gates, it is merely putting things in context.

“What I told  Mr Gate is that, you have identified the problem correctly, but you are looking at the wrong tier of government“.

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Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) had planned for eight lawmakers to attend the 43rd international training programme on utility regulation and strategy worth $96,350 but it was cancelled thereafter.

According to Premium Times, months after it was cancelled, activists have continued to question the legitimacy of such a trip sponsored by the government agencies they are supposed to have an oversight on – it created a conflict of interest.

The funds, the report continues, was approved and the money released to the lawmakers, however, the understanding remains that the trip was cancelled for undisclosed reasons.

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The Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, says the achievements of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has been under-reported.

Her words, “I want to emphasise that this administration is doing a marvellous job.

“Though we are part of it, we can attest to that fact.

“I am from Cross River and I know the number of roads that are being constructed including the Calabar to Umuahia road.

“However, we are not getting adequate report of what the administration is achieving.”

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Spokesman to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Ikechukwu Eze, has refuted media reports linking opposition party, PDP, to the Cambridge Analytica controversy.

In a statement on Thursday, Eze clarified that he responded to a reporter’s inquiry that Jonathan was not aware of the alleged involvement of the organisation in the 2015 general elections in Nigeria.

He said his response was twisted and the party, PDP, was smuggled into the conversation with the AFP reporter “because the PDP was neither mentioned in the scandal nor came up in my chat with the reporter“.

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Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) Thursday prayed the Supreme Court to stop INEC from going ahead with the process of his recall.

Through his lead counsel, Mike Ozekhome, Melaye raised seven grounds of appeal he urged the court to consider to include:

• An order of perpetual injunction restraining INEC… from commencing or further continuing with the process of acting on the purported petition presented to it by his constituents.
• A motion for an order staying the execution of the March 16 judgement of the Court of Appeal in Abuja that gave INEC the nod to resume process for his recall.
• An order that parties maintain status quo pending the hearing and final determination of the appeal he lodged before the Supreme Court and others.

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And… stories from around the world.

Stock markets slipped Friday, after US President Donald Trump proposed tariffs on more Chinese products, aggravating trade tensions, while the dollar steadied before the closely watched US non-farm payrolls report.

Trump had instructed US trade officials to consider $100 billion in additional tariffs on China.

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Donald Trump has broken his two-month silence about allegations he had with adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, insisting he did not pay her $130,000 hush money through his lawyer.

The President replied with a “no” when he was asked if he knew about the payment made in the final weeks of the 2016 election.

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Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg told NBC that users would have to pay a fee if they wished to avoid all user data-targeted ads.

Sandberg also reiterated that Facebook doesn’t sell user data but “our service depends on your data“.

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54 percent Venezuelans have blamed President Nicolas Maduro for the hyperinflation which is said to be wreaking havoc on the economy.

50 percent say his leadership is “very bad”, while 0.4 percent say it’s very good. Overall approval therefore stands at 22 percent.

This comes from a polling data from the Atlantic Council which offers a bleak portrait of the humanitarian crisis engulfing the country.

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Crowds gather to plead for an end to violence after a 13-year-old was stabbed in attacks in Docklands, Ealing, Herne Hill, Mile End and Newham.

Six people, five of them teenagers, have been hospitalised following five separate knife attacks in London on Thursday as protesters took to the streets to plead for a definite end to the violence.