Nigeria opens museum to "Afrobeat King" Fela Kuti

When he was alive, Fela Kuti electrified Nigerians and many music lovers the world over with his hip-shaking and strangely hypnotic blend of jazz, funk and West African folk rhythms.

BY SHARON ATSEYINKUN AND DAVID SANI/REUTERS

Seun Kuti (L) and Femi Kuti, sons of Nigeria's music legend Fela Kuti, share jokes at the opening ceremony of a museum in honour of their father in Lagos, October 15, 2012. Kuti, a human rights activist and Afrobeat music pioneer, died of AIDS related complications in 1997. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

His legendary sexual exploits with dozens of women, marijuana smoking and fearless critiques of Nigeria's then corrupt and oppressive military regime only served to heighten the mystique.

This week Nigeria opened a new museum to the King of Afrobeat, at the start of a week-long annual "Felabration" to mark his 74th birthday on Monday, in the commercial hub Lagos.

"Everybody has a piece of Fela in him. He touched everybody," said the Theo Lawson, the architect who converted Fela's old family house into the government-funded museum.

The house is also a boutique hotel, with a bar and stage.

"We didn't want a museum that closes at night and the life source leaves the building," Lawson explained.

Inside, decorations include brightly coloured murals, chic African art, photos from his life and performances, and a wall devoted to the different flamboyant shoes he wore.

His bedroom remains as has been since he died of HIV/AIDS in 1997: a bed, clothes, more shoes, colourful underpants -- often they were all he wore. His electric keyboard has been mounted.

The 'Afrobeat' sound that Fela Kuti concocted in the 1960s mixes bass groves with jazz organ and traditional West African drumming, punctuated by a cacophony of horns and shrill backing vocals by gyrating women in colourful beads.

It still resonates across Lagos from nightclubs, bars and roadside eateries selling grilled meat.

In the late 1970s Fela became a symbol of the struggle against successive military dictators.

"Fela was frustrated. He came back from America full of ideas of Africanism and African unity, but he was talking to a bunch of military despots who just didn't listen," Lawson said.

In 1977 his smash hit "Zombie" infuriated the military by accusing soldiers of being violent, brainless automata. In the same year, around 1,000 soldiers descended on his commune in a rampage in which they burned down the house, cracked his skull and threw his septuagenarian mother out of a window.

Fela's fondness for smoking massive, cone-shaped marijuana "spliffs" on stage and his rejection of Nigeria's two monotheistic religions -- Christianity and Islam -- in favour of traditional Yoruba gods did not endear him to its conservative elites. Neither did the stories of Fela's 27 wives and his free love sex commune.

Even today, "The Shrine", a nightclub where his sons Femi and Seun carry on the tradition of working up eclectic crowds into fits of dancing, are considered risqué by many.

"This (museum) is a chance for everyone to see for themselves, not follow the myths that being in Fela's house meant you're a hooligan, or a prostitute or all we do is smoke weed," Seun told Reuters in an interview before the opening.

"I grew up here. This house was a house of education."

Fela's sons believe his message -- a call to peaceful rebellion against corrupt elites -- still resonates.

"Corruption is now like a cancer in our society," his eldest son Femi said from the museum's rooftop bar. "Everything will take time. The youth will see this is not the way to go."

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and daughter, Chelsea Meet President Goodluck Jonathan

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, met with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Tuesday, October 16, 2012, on mainly health-related issues - alleviating child mortality in the poverty-stricken nation. The trip is organized and sponsored by former President Bill Clinton's The Clinton Access Health Initiative which estimates providing access and "making the tablets available to children could help prevent as many as 220,000 child deaths a year in Nigeria."

Integrated Energy Takes Big Share In Split For Power Supply In Nigeria

Former military dictator Abdulsalami Abubakar (NAN File Photo)

In what has been hovering over the years and speculations about privatizing power supply long run by the state, former military junta, Abduksalami Abubakar, who is chairman of Integrated Energy, was on Tuesday, October 16, 2012, allocated four out of the ten power distribution companies Nigeria Privatization Council offered for sale to the highest bidder for 197.25 billion naira as part of plan to reform the country's collapsed power generating sector.

Integrated Energy is partnered with Manila Electric, the Philippines biggest power distribution company.

Following Abubakar's Integrated Energy is billionaire Emeka Offor's chaired Chrome Energy for power distributions in Abuja and Enugu. Others included: Aura Energy, Port Harcourt; and Sahelian Energy, Kano.

Abubakar's Integrated energy will be supplying power to Yola, Ibadan, Lagos (Eko) and Ikeja. The distribution companies will be responsible for delivering power to consumers to be regulated by government agencies.

Two Americans Win Nobel Econ Prize for Work on Match-Making in Health Care, Education

BY KARL RITTER & PAUL WISEMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

In this photo combination, UCLA professor emeritus Lloyd Shapley, left, is seen at his home Monday, Oct. 15, 2012, and Harvard professor Alvin E. Roth is seen in a 2008 photo provided by Harvard University. Shapley and Roth were awarded the Nobel economics prize Monday for studies on the match-making that takes place when doctors are coupled up with hospitals, students with schools and human organs with transplant recipients. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Harvard University)

STOCKHOLM | Two American scholars won the Nobel economics prize Monday for work on match-making — how to pair doctors with hospitals, students with schools, kidneys with transplant recipients and even men with women in marriage.

Lloyd Shapley of UCLA and Alvin Roth, a Harvard University professor currently visiting at Stanford University, found ways to make markets work when traditional economic tools fail.

Shapley, 89, came up with the formulas to match supply and demand in markets where prices don't do the job; the 60-year-old Roth put Shapley's math to work in the real world.

Unlike some recent Nobel prizes — such as the Peace Prize that went to the embattled European Union last week — this year's economics award did not seem to send a political message.

"It's all about down-to-earth, highly useful stuff," said Robert Aumann, a professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University who won the 2005 economics Nobel. "We're talking about the nitty-gritty of health care and education — which medical students are assigned to which hospitals. We're talking about how to arrange donors of kidneys."

Shapley made early theoretical inroads into the subject, using game theory to analyze different matching methods in the 1950s and '60s.

In a groundbreaking 1962 paper, Shapley and the late David Gale looked at how to match 10 men and 10 women in perfectly stable marriages. They created a model in which no two people liked anyone else better than each other.

While that may have had little impact on marriages and divorces, the elegant algorithm they developed has been used to better understand many different markets.

Building on Shapley's work, Roth applied it decades later to the market for allocating doctors, creating an algorithm that led to the redesign of the National Resident Matching Program that pairs fourth-year medical students with hospitals.

"Before Roth, it was not unusual to not get any of your first three or four choices," said David Warsh, who follows university economists in his Economic Principals blog. "After Roth hooked up this new algorithm, almost everyone got what they wanted."

Roth also successfully applied the formula to New York City's public schools, ensuring that fewer students ended up in schools that were not among their top choices. Now, noted Susan Athey, a Stanford University economist, "there are school districts all over the country that are considering these matching procedures."

The algorithm has also been used to match kidneys with patients who need transplants.

Before Roth, "there were no economists in that business at all," Warsh says. "He's really changed it and saved a lot of lives."

Roth looks at cases where prices can't be used to match supply and demand. In some markets — such as organ transplants — society recoils at the notion of a product or service going to whoever can pay the highest price.

"Al has spent a lot of time studying markets where things don't work out," says Roth's former student, Parag Pathak, now an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"It's not like we could just buy and sell kidneys, and people can't buy their way into public schools. So standard economic models don't apply."

"Al Roth richly deserves this prize," agreed Daniel McFadden, a professor of health economics at the University of California, Berkeley. "He is an imaginative inventor and doer, who has solved concrete, important resource-allocation problems."

Prize committee member Peter Gardenfors said the winners' work could also be applied to other areas, such as allocating housing to students or refugees.

"There are economic problems that can't be solved with normal market mechanisms," Gardenfors said. "With these matchings, there is no money involved so the main thing is to follow what kind of preferences people have — who wants to be matched with whom — and find a good solution to that."

Shapley learned that he and Roth had won the $1.2 million award from an Associated Press photographer and another journalist who went to his home in Los Angeles early Monday.

"I consider myself a mathematician, and the award is for economics," Shapley told AP. "I never, never in my life took a course in economics."

The son of renowned astronomer Harlow Shapley, who helped estimate the true size of the Milky Way galaxy, Shapely noted: "Now, I'm ahead of my father. He got other prizes. ... But he did not get a Nobel Prize."

Roth said he and his wife were asleep when the phone rang at 3:30 a.m.

"We missed the first call because we were asleep, but we had time to wake up and think that might be what it was," he said. "My wife is going to go out and get us some coffee, and maybe we'll absorb it."

He said the award "casts a light on the work. It makes it more visible. And it's an exciting area of economics, so that's a good thing. ... We're not macroeconomists who think about the whole economy. We think about particular markets and marketplaces and how to make them work better."

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was the last of the 2012 Nobel awards to be announced.

It's not technically a Nobel Prize: Unlike the five other awards, it wasn't established in the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite. The economics prize was created by the Swedish central bank in Nobel's memory in 1968, and has been handed out with the other prizes ever since.

Americans have dominated the economics award: 15 of the last 17 winners have come from the United States.

The 2012 Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics chemistry and literature and the Nobel Peace Prize were announced last week. All awards will be handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Wiseman reported from Washington. AP writers Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Lauren E. Bohn In Jerusalem, Jay Lindsay in Boston and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, and AP photographer Reed Saxon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Zumba Sex Case: Police Release 21 Names In Alexis Wright Investigation

Alexis Wright, A Fitness Instructor In Kennebuk, Has Been Charged With Running a Prostitution Business Out Of Her Zumba Dance Studio And Secretly Videotaping Her Encounters., Maine, Crime News

BY CLARK CANFIELD

KENNEBUNK, MAINE (AP) — Police on Monday released the first round of names of more than 100 men accused of paying for sex with a Zumba instructor who's charged with turning her dance studio into a brothel in this seaside community.

The release of 21 names followed 11th-hour legal wrangling, and some residents watched the news flash on their local evening TV news.

Kim Ackley, a local real estate agent, said that disclosure of the names will cause temporary pain for families but it's only fair because others who are accused of embarrassing crimes don't get breaks.

"What's fair for one has to be fair for the other," said Ackley, who believes she knows several people on the list. "The door can't swing just one way."

Residents had been anxiously awaiting the release of names since 29-year-old Alexis Wright was charged this month with engaging in prostitution in her dance studio and in an office she rented across the street. Police said she kept meticulous records suggesting the sex acts generated $150,000 over 18 months.

Wright, from nearby Wells, has pleaded not guilty to 106 counts of prostitution, invasion of privacy and other charges. Her business partner, 57-year-old insurance agent and private investigator Mark Strong Sr., from Thomaston, has pleaded not guilty to 59 misdemeanor charges.

Police said more than 150 people are suspected of being clients and many of them were videotaped without their knowledge. A judge ordered the release of names without ages or addresses to protect those who might have been secretly recorded, so their occupations and roles in the community, if any, couldn't immediately be determined.

In town, residents heard the list could include lawyers, law enforcement officers and well-known people, heightening their curiosity.

The prostitution charges and ensuing publicity, which reached across the country and beyond, came as a shock in the small town of about 10,000 residents, which is well-known for its ocean beaches, old sea captains' mansions and the neighboring town of Kennebunkport, home to the Bush family's Walker's Point summer compound.

The list of names was delayed Friday by legal action by an attorney representing two of the people accused of being johns. The lawyer, Stephen Schwartz, said releasing the names will ruin people's lives, even if they're acquitted of the misdemeanor charges against them.

Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren on Monday denied a motion seeking to block disclosure of the names. The Associated Press reached out Monday evening to men on the list, but it was difficult to confirm their identities without knowing their addresses.

Some town residents said they had suspicions about Wright, but others were in the dark about the life of the bubbly dance instructor who introduced many local women to the Latin-flavored dance and fitness program.

Ackley's daughter, Alison Ackley, who participated in Wright's class four or five times, said she had no inkling of any illegal activity.

"She was so young," Alison Ackley said. "She had a lot going for her. It's a shame she was hanging out with these older men and getting money from them."

Resident Leonid Temkin said he had mixed feelings about publicizing the names because it could cause marriages to dissolve and men to lose their jobs.

"I think it'll cause a lot of hardship," he said.

But Kim Ackley said she believes interest will die down once all the names become public in the coming weeks.

"A year from now it won't even be talked about, once it goes through the courts," she said.

Associated Press reporter David Sharp in Portland contributed to this report.

No African leader deemed worthy of leadership award

By Eoghan Macguire and Catriona Davies, CNN African Voices

Mo Ibrahim, Sudanese billionaire and founder of Mo Ibrahim Foundation.

(CNN) -- No-one has been awarded the world's most valuable prize, the $5 million Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which was due to be announced Monday.

For the third time in six years, no African leader has been deemed worthy of the prize, awarded by Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim's foundation.

"The Prize Committee reviewed a number of eligible candidates but none met the criteria needed to win this Award. The Award is about excellence in leadership." the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Prize Committee said in a press release.

The prize is a $5 million award paid over 10 years and $200,000 annually for life after that.

It is awarded to democratically elected leaders who have stepped down in the past three years after serving their constitutionally mandated term, and have demonstrated "excellence in office."

Ibrahim, chairman and founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, said: "Since we launched the Prize six years ago, we have had three winners, and three years without." The Prize Committee reviewed a number of candidates but none met the criteria needed to win the prize.

Mo Ibrahim Foundation Prize Committee

Last year's winner was President Pedro Verona Pires of Cape Verde for his "vision in transforming Cape Verde into a model of democracy, stability and increased prosperity."

Other previous winners have been Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique in 2007 and Festus Mogae of Botswana in 2008. Nelson Mandela was made the honorary inaugural Laureate in 2006.

In 2009 and 2010 there was no winner.

In a report on African governance released by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Monday to coincide with the prize, Nigeria moved into the bottom 10 countries on the continent for governance for the first time. It was ranked 43rd out of 54 countries based on 88 indicators taking in factors such as human rights, rule of law, development, personal safety, participation in the political process, infrastructure, welfare, health and education.

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) -- an annual study measuring accountability and good governance in 52 out of 54 African nations -- found four of the continent's powerhouses, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa, have declined in quality of governance since 2006.

Abdoulie Janneh, former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and Board Member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation said in a press release: "Given the vast natural and human resources of these four regional powers, these governance results are a concern.

"Each of these countries plays a key role in the economic and political landscape of the continent. To continue to optimally play this role requires a sustained commitment to balanced and equitable governance."

Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa were all deemed to have deteriorated in their safety, rule of law, participation for citizens and human rights.

Claims of corruption in Nigeria and Kenya have been common in recent years, with Transparency International ranking the two countries 143 and 154 respectively out of 183 nations for corruption.

South Africa and Kenya meanwhile also registered a drop in sustainable economic opportunity.

The report uses data from 2000 to 2011 and does not take into account changes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia since the Arab Spring. The report's authors used data from hundreds of sources but said a lack of data had hindered it.

Ibrahim said in a press release: "Good governance is about harnessing a country's resources to achieve the results any citizen living in the 21st century has a right to expect. One of Africa's biggest leadership and governance challenges going forward is to master its own robust statistical system. Political sovereignty begins with data autonomy."

The report said there was an overarching trend towards more inclusive and representative leadership since 2000, with improvements in 11 out of 14 of its subcategories.

Significant improvements in the rule of law were registered in the formerly war-torn nations of Liberia and Sierra Leone, while Angola, Guinea and Liberia made major strides in human rights.

Other countries to record strong performances in areas such as human development and sustainable economic performance included Rwanda, Mauritius and Zambia. Tanzania has climbed the IIAG's rankings over the past six years, making it into the top 10 for the first time.

Across the continent the study noted particularly high improvements in gender equality in all regions bar west Africa.

Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and Board Member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation said, "Africa's women have the capacity to bring about remarkable change and therefore equity and equality between men and women is in the strategic interests of African leaders and governments."

Earlier this month, the foundation awarded Archbishop Desmond Tutu a one-off $1 million special prize for his lifelong commitment towards "speaking truth to power," -- a trait emphasized throughout South African apartheid and more recently in his call for Tony Blair and George W. Bush to "made to answer" at the International Criminal Court for their role in the Iraq war.

There Is Still A Country

Controversy continues to trail Chinua Achebe's latest memoir, entitled 'There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra,' the book which focuses on the Nigerian Civil War. Devils remain in the petty details of this singular memoir by the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart and The Trouble with Nigeria among others.

For as long as it is read, there is no doubt that these details will provoke more controversy which in turn must rightly task our objectivity and sincerity of purpose for nation-building. However, instant lively controversy (albeit binary and divisive) that has trailed this book so far, has paradoxically diminished the value of what could passed for an important memoir. By its Nigeria-pessimism post humus title There Was A Country, the author appoints to consign Nigeria to some unmerited dust-bin of history; There was a country.

Indeed the book, its author, its critics and admirers alike have shown that contrary to its dead-end title there is indeed still a vibrant country called Nigeria, with considerable passions, arguments for and against. Chinua Achebe is certainly not one Karl Maier who entitled his provocative apocalyptic book about Nigeria: 'This House Has Fallen' over a decade ago (2000) when he was grabbling with 'Nigeria in crisis'. Maier's is a typical true-to-type Western intellectual smear and snobbery: what you cannot explain in Africa, simply bury it! While Meir typifies a kind of Afro-pessimism without a human face, if you like, Achebe's Nigeria-pessimism is borne out of a lived experience, inclusive of a deadly civil war that sadly consumed over a million people as an anti-climax! To that extent we must tolerate Achebe even as we must interrogate and question his facts and his literary assumptions.

Achebe himself was once upbeat before he descended into total despair and wholesome disillusionment which he modestly attributes to nothing but the unfortunate Biafra war civil war. According to him ". Nigeria was once a land of great hope and progress, a nation with immense resources at its disposal - natural resources, yes, but even more so, human resources. But the Biafran war changed the course of Nigeria. In my view it was a cataclysmic experience that changed the history of Africa. There is some connection between the particular distress of war, the particular tension of war, and the kind of literacy response it inspires."

Since Achebe has confessed the source of his agony he verily deserves our understanding even while we must contest his historic claims to justify false conclusions and sheer literary posthumous terrorism against the dead such as his smear comments against great and tested statesmen like Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Sir Ahmadu Bello who today are not in position to reply. Indeed we will do better if having read the book, we encourage the legendary story teller to rather stop agonizing and organize his thoughts for a better Nigeria not a failed state.

The truth of the matter is that, this House (read: Nigeria!) has not fallen. Indeed there was truly a Nigeria, there is a Nigeria that features the likes of Achebe as its own and definitely there will still be a Nigeria contrary to the doomsday scenario and its day enthusiastic supporters that must not include a literary giant like Chinua Achebe. Of course the Nigeria's crisis persists, even deepens and definitely tasks any writer and patriot any day. But which country is immune from varying crises of different dimensions? And how many patriots would despair as Nigeria's intellectuals like Achebe do? Yours sincerely is encouraged that Chinua Achebe writes his controversial memoir "for the sake of the future of Nigeria, for our children and grandchildren". Am even more impressed that he recommends Nelson Mandela leadership model for Nigeria.

All we must do is to encourage Chinua Achebe to work his literary prose. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is right to say there is no future without forgiveness. Nelson Mandela never spends a day agonizing about the historic burden of apartheid or putting blames of the dead but courageously move to organize and organize South Africa towards unprecedented racial reconciliation.

Nigeria had the best post war recovery and reconstruction that even preceded that of South Africa (indeed we liberated South Africa). This means Nigeria's civil war was unfortunate and artificial with many lives avoidably lost no thanks to military adventurers of the 60s. Let nobody reinvent a dead chapter in the nation's history. Authors with their pens must unite the country better than footballers running around round leather ball, but that is if we raise hope in place of despair. By the way, congrats to the Super Eagles for raising the banner of hope at the weekend. There is certainly still a country.

......Issa Aremu/Daily Trust Nigeria

Robbers Raid Journalist, Kill Own Two Gang Members, Three Others

With Christmas barely nine weeks away, the spate of armed robberies is getting fiercer, as robbers not only organise mass raids, they have also become rather bloodthirsty. Last Saturday, no fewer than four persons were shot dead and several others injured at Anglican Road in Sango Ota, Ogun State when a 12-man armed gang stormed the area in the wee hours of the day. But as it would happen, the robbers erroneously shot dead two members of the gang, taken for residents of the neighbourhood.

The Ota area is said to be the new haven for robbers chased out of Lagos State. They (robbers) have thus carried out several operations within the area, sometimes even on the Lagos-Abeokuta highway, without as much a confrontation by the police.

In their latest raid, the armed gang stormed the street at about 1.45am and first shot the security dog dead to prevent it from alerting people of their presence with its barking.

Next, the gang attacked and eliminated the two security men on the street, Tunde Olejesu, and one Kolade Kehinde, after which they headed for the home of their victim, a former member of staff of The Guardian and presently a Director with Environment Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi. He was lucky to have escaped their bullets.

Speaking to THISDAY Sunday, the victim's colleague, Mr. Tunji Buhari, said the robbers stormed the house at about 1.45am armed with Ak47 rifles and other weapons.

Narrating what transpired he said: "It all started on October 12 at about 1.45am when some heavily armed men, numbering about 12, stormed Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi's house.

"First, they shot at our security man, Tunde Olajesu, at the gate to prevent him from alerting us. He was, however, fortunate as the bullet hit his hand and not a more dangerous part of the body.

"Wisely, he pretended that he was dead so they left him in a pool of his own blood taking him for dead. They stormed Oluwafemi's building, a duplex and shot Oluwafemi's brother-in-law, Kolade Kehinde, who lives on the ground floor."

THISDAY gathered that Kehinde was the only son of his mother and had come to Lagos from Ekiti State to look for a job. Now his dream has been terminated by the hot bullets of a rogue gang.

Before the robbers could break into the house, the Oluwafemis, sufficiently frightened, had managed to contact a few persons to help them call for help. But none came.

Speaking to THISDAY on strict conditions of anonymity, one of the persons contacted said he put a call across to Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, an Assistant Superintendent of Police in the Ogun State Police Command, at about 2am to alert him on the robbery and he promised to send his men but he never did.

He said: "To give him credit, he picked (his call) when I called him at about 2.00am. He promised to send his men but he did not. If he did, I am sure some of the robbers would have been apprehended. In fact, till the robbers were done, no police presence was felt.

"It was even Oluwafemi and some people that went to the station to report the incident. It was only then that four policemen were assigned to follow Oluwafemi back to the house; a classic case of medicine after death."

Meanwhile, the gang who had come prepared used an iron cutter to cut open the protector doors despite the assurance from the family that they would open the door willingly.

Tunji narrated: "When the robbers hit the door repeatedly, Oluwafemi appealed to them that he would open the door peacefully, which he attempted to do but he was forced to run back to lock himself in the toilet when the gang released hails of bullets into the house.

"Having succeeded in scaring them, the gang forcibly entered the house and dragged them out from their hiding places and demanded money, including hard currency.

"They robbed us, scraping off whatever money that was in the house. Not satisfied, they ransacked the entire house and made away with valuables like laptops, camera, four phones, gold, children's cloth, shoes and even foodstuffs. While they were doing this, they sporadically released volleys of bullets riddling the walls, property and ceiling with hot leads."

Tunji noted that it was after the robbers had left that they discovered the body of another unidentified person in the gutter. It was then they set out to the Sango Ota Police Station to make their report.

With the four policemen, they returned and removed the body of the man from the gutter.

"When we lifted him from the gutter, he was clutching something in his hands. When it was forced open, we discovered that it was his prayer beads. He was praying when he was killed and thrown into the gutter.

"We used one of our cars to take him to the nearby mortuary. It was even later that we discovered that the gang had mistakenly killed two of their members," he said.

Also speaking to THISDAY, a resident of the street who was simply identified as Biodun said the robbery was premeditated as the robbers did not visit any other person in the neighbourhood.

He said: "From all indications, the robbery was planned and neatly executed. First, they came with iron cutter, which they used to cut the barbed wires to gain entrance into the compound.

"Then they eliminated the security dog and the security guard before storming the house. Throughout the robbery operation, they were demanding that Oluwafemi bring out the money."

Tunji lamented that the police were yet to come up with anything neither has any arrest been made. As at press time, efforts made to contact the Ogun State Police Command spokesman were unsuccessful.

.........CHIMELIE EZEOBI/THIS DAY

Father, Two Kids Among 20 Killed in Kaduna Attack

No fewer than 20 people were yesterday killed by suspected bandits at Dogon Dawa village, Birnin Gwari Local Government area of Kaduna State.

At least, 18 others were said to have escaped with various degrees of injuries.

A source said those killed were cornered in a mosque but Kaduna State government and the state police command said in a swift reaction that nobody was killed in a mosque.

The police, however, said 12 persons were killed in the attack but gave no details.

Among those killed were a man and his two children, while his wife's hand was crudely amputated by the bandits.

The incident was said to have occurred when the gunmen, said to have been responsible for series of robbery operations in the area in the past, struck.

The bandits were said to have visited their anger on the community for allegedly killing some of their members.

A source told Vanguard that the bandits had formed a camp near Dogon Dawa, about 90 minutes drive from Kaduna town.

Said the source: "They were chased out by the Zamfara State government three months ago and came to settle in a bush near our village. They have been involved in many robbery incidents here.

"About two months ago, two of the bandits were caught and beaten to death and their camp was sacked. We rejoiced that they have left, only for them to return around 5am yesterday."

He said on their arrival at the village, the bandits went to a house whose owner they suspected to be responsible for identifying their members and killed him and two of his children, while one of the wife's hand was chopped off.

According to him, 17 people who were just coming from early morning prayers were killed by the gang.

Another source told Vanguard that in the wake of the insecurity faced by the villagers, a committee was formed to find ways of solving it.

"The criminals must have fled the village when they discovered that they no longer had a base there. But this morning, they came back and went to the house of the man they suspected to be responsible for identifying them, killed him and two of his children and cut the hand of his wife.

"They also killed 17 other people in the village. Those people they killed were just coming from the early morning prayers.

"I can confirm to you that it was not a robbery operation, but it was the criminals themselves that came for a reprisal attack because the people have been identifying them.

"The criminals had earlier sent messages that they were coming to attack the village, but their threat was not taken seriously."

However, when contacted on telephone, Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Olufemi Adenaike, said he would address the press on the matter, but could not do so at the time of this report.

He, however, said: "I heard some villagers arrested armed robbers, then some robbers came back today (Sunday) and killed 12 people in a reprisal attack, while the villagers killed two of them.

"The rumour going on that 20 people were killed while coming from mosque is not true, but I will get back to you when I get full details."

Also, Kaduna State governor, Mr Patrick Yakowa, speaking through his media aide, Mr. Reuben Buhari, said: the reported incident at Dogon Dawa did not take place in a mosque as reported by some news channels.

"That is far from the truth. The police would soon give a correct detail of what happened."

.........VANGUARD NIGERIA

Lawyer To Be Arraigned For Diverting Judgement Money Paid Out To Client

The immediate past Vice President of the Nigeria Bar Association, Barrister Blessing Emonena Ukiri, will today, Monday, October 15, 2012, arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, for allegedly embezzling a total sum of thirty-five million naira paid by the Central Bank of Nigeria to a client.

Following a court order issued by Justice U.N. Agomoh of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt on Thursday, October 11, 2012, Ukiri was arrested at his D/Line, Port Harcourt office on Friday, October 12, 2012. Ukiri will be facing a three count charge of stealing, fraud and money laundering, for using judgement money paid by the Central Bank of Nigeria to his client, Samuel Onowighose.

According to statements released by Wilson Uwujaren, the Acting Head, Media & Publicity of the commission, Ukiri had used some of the money to purchase one hundred and fifty units of shares from First Bank of Nigeria.

Shuttle Endeavour Arrives Final Destination

California Science Center: The Shuttle Endeavour finally arrives to its new home sitting in front of The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Shuttle Display Pavilion Sunday, October 14, 2012, where it will be housed until the Air and Space Center is completed which is now in Phase 3. With the Shuttle Endeavour at its centerpiece, the center will encourage guests, researchers and scholars to investigate scientific and engineering principles related to atmospheric flight and the exploration of the universe. The Display Pavilion will be open to the public October 30, 2012. Location: California Science Center, Los Angeles.

Television trucks from all area networks positioned for eyewitness news-related reports on Shuttle Endeavour's arrival through Bill Robertson Lane at the California Science Center Sunday, October 14, 2012.

LAPD patrol cars on alert and surveillance truck with microwaves and satellite receptions (not shown) sits on the yellow-taped and off-limits section of the Ralphs Supermarket on the Crenshaw Corridor in Mid-City, while the Shuttle Endeavour embarks on its final trip to its permanent home at the California Science Center.