These are the stories that drove the conversation today:

The All Progressives Congress (APC) says it has received credible reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has made moves to get the United States of America to lift an alleged travel ban on former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.

As contained in a statement released on Friday in Abuja by the Spokesman of the APC, Yekini Nabena, Obasanjo is lobbying United States authorities to withdraw the ban reportedly placed on Atiku from entering the state, based on a report by the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Carl Levin.

“The report further stated that then President Bush had on the strength of his report, barred Atiku and other corrupt politically-exposed persons from being issued visa to the United States, a reason for which he has been unable to travel to the United States till date,” the statement read.

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Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara, has revealed that he has been under intense pressure to defect from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) with his supporters.

Speaking with State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja on Friday, Yari who said he had handed over the results of the primaries conducted in the state to the President after the Jumaat prayer, promised that despite the pressure from his people to dump the ruling party, he will remain with the party and fight against any injustice.

“But for me, if you check my history since 1998, APP, and 2002 when Buhari joined ANPP, and 2015 APC, no time that I shifted from one party to another. That is not in my culture. So, the issue of leaving the party is not true,” the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) Chairman said.

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Similarly, a leading governorship aspirant in the state, Senator Kabiru Garba Marafa, on Friday dissociated himself from a meeting convened by the National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole with governorship aspirants of the party in Zamfara on Thursday.

Marafa who disclosed this while reacting to a publication on “Oshiomhole meets Zamfara Guber aspirants, as party considers Lawal”, said that there was neither election nor consensus reached among APC aspirants in the state,” insisted that he would not be party to any move to trade with the APC Governorship ticket of Zamfara and that the  due process and rule of law must be religiously adhered to.

“I want to state emphatically that nobody invited me to any meeting after the failed attempt to conduct primaries/consensus as at 12am Sunday 7th Oct 2018,” the Zamfara Central Senator said

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Presidential Candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, on Friday said he was contesting for the office of the President as a Nigerian and not as an Igbo man, stressing that Nigerians cannot afford to keep thinking about whether a candidate is Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Efik, Ijaw or Ibibio.

Moghalu, who disclosed this in a statement issued on Friday in Lagos, said that any creative limiting his presidential ambition to any tribe was the handwork of mischief makers, adding that “it is time to put aside these differences and aim for something that unites us all, to deliver a country that works for every citizen.”

“Anyone who has listened or paid attention to our interactive session with various groups will realise what our single message has always been that Nigeria’s problems are not about tribes.” he said.

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Outgoing Governor of Ekiti, Ayodele Fayose, has presented a handover note of his administration to the state’s Head of Service, Dr. Gbenga Faseluka.

Speaking at a Special State Executive Council meeting at the new Governor’s Office in Ado Ekiti on Friday, Fayose thanked the people of the state for their cooperation and urge them to extend same to the incoming administration in the interest of the development of the state

“What has a beginning must have an end. It is not the number of years spent but the quantity and quality of achievements, I’m a man who came, saw and conquered. I can’t finish all. I have done my best. History will be kind to me as a man who has given his best to the people.” Fayose said.

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