Saraki, PDP, R-APC Leaders Meet As Defection Rumour Heightens And Other Newspaper Headlines Today

The purported defection of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and some other bigwigs of the All Progressives Congress APC to the PDP was yesterday fuelled with a meeting of the said “like minds” at Saraki’s GRA residence in Ilorin, the Kwara State Capital.

Nigerian Newspapers like the NIGERIAN TRIBUNE, DAILY INDEPENDENT, DAILY SUN, NEW TELEGRAPH and THE NATION all make it their lead story.

The report says Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, met Wednesday in Ilorin, Kwara state, with National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus and other high ranking members of the opposition party in what was largely seen as a strategic political discussion over his possible return to the PDP.

Others who attended the meeting included former Jigawa state governor and PDP presidential hopeful, Alhaji Sule Lamido, Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike, Sokoto state governor, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwa, his Benue state counterpart, Samuel Ortom, governor Abdulfattah Ahmed of Kwara as well as Mr. Kola Ologbodiyan, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP.

The meeting came after some of the dignitaries had taken part in the eighth day Fidau prayers for Alhaja Aishat, mother of Alhaji Kawu Baraje,the former National Leader of the now defunct NewPDP.  Those who did not feature at the Fidau but were present at the meeting included Tambuwal, Lamido, and Secondus.

For Secondus, yesterday’s meeting was his second time of coming to Ilorin within five days as he had earlier visited the Baraje family house on Saturday where he warned against rigging in the now concluded gubernatorial poll in Ekiti state. Despites frantic efforts by journalists,no one was ready to shed light on the outcome of yesterday’s meeting which took place at Saraki’s official home in Ilorin.

The PUNCH takes the story of the ongoing war of words between Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari.

Obasanjo said in a letter read on his behalf at a one-day national summit on insecurity and killings in Nigeria convened by the Northern Elders Forum, Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Pan Niger Delta Forum in Abuja that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is incompetent and incapable of addressing the killings and poverty in the country.

Represented by a former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, he argued that the administration was confused and had reached the end of its tether while the nation was being left perilously to drift by his action and inaction which is doing a lot of harm to the nation’s commonwealth and heritage.