Today’s Headlines: Why Atiku Can’t Win Presidency; OBJ, Daughter Trade Banter at Forum

The only thing former vice president Atiku Abubakar has going for him is his intransigence. He was vice president between 1999 and 2007, the last four of those years as an alienated deputy to his boss, former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

As a serial presidential aspirant or candidate since 2003, and with each succeeding election cycle, Alhaji Atiku has proved more intransigent, combative, and increasingly and desperately ambitious. He is entitled to his goals in life.

But, as he has probably discovered, the more he strives for the presidency, his life’s goal since 2003, the more the position becomes elusive. Consequently, the frustrations he has endured for more than two decades have turned him into a bitter and vexatious old man. By the next presidential election, he will be over 80 years old, and his chances of winning the presidency much slimmer than when he started out clumsily.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his lookalike daughter, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo, turned a public symposium into a comedy arena of sort on Friday evening as they exchanged playful banter.

The mild drama unfolded at the main auditorium of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State, venue of the Ajibosin Platform, an annual symposium organised as part of the celebration of the Odun Omo Olowu festival.

Iyabo, a former commissioner for health and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the Ogun Central Senatorial District election, was one of the panellists at the event, where discussions centred on the theme: “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Solve Grassroots Problems and Accelerate National Development.”

Troops of the Joint Task Force, North West, Operation FANSAN YAMMA, have rescued eleven kidnapped victims in two separate operations in Danko-Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State.

A statement by the Acting Media Information Officer, Captain Tamuno Sinivie, says the operations, conducted on October 30 and 31, also involved foiling a terrorist attack and repelling an ambush.

In the first operation, troops responded to a distress call over an attempted invasion of Ribah town by suspected terrorists who had blocked the Ribah-Dirindaji road.

The attackers fled with seven persons but released them following a military pursuit towards Rambo village. The victims have since been reunited with their families.

In a separate operation, troops on patrol in the Wasagu-Falfala area came under terrorist ambush but fought back, forcing the attackers to flee.

Lagos teacher, Busayo Adeyemo, has won the 2026 Maltina Teacher of the Year award, receiving a N10 million cash prize and a three-bedroom apartment from the Lagos State government.

Ms Adeyemo, of Lanre Awolokun High School, Gbagada, Lagos, emerged winner at the 12th edition of the competition organised by the Nigerian Breweries-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund (NB-FOETF) on Friday in Lagos.

Apart from the cash prize and apartment, she also received a Honda HR-V, an all-expenses-paid overseas capacity development training, a one-year supply of Maltina and a N30 million school infrastructure project to be built in her honour.

According to a press release from the organiser, Ms Adeyemi also won the Maltina Prize for Best STEM Teacher, for which she received an additional N1.5 million.

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