Chinua Achebe's body arrives Nigeria, Four Presidents, Archbishop Of Canterbury For Burial

Anambra State Government on Tuesday said four Heads of State and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev. Justin Welby, would be attending the burial of the literary icon, Prof. Chinua Achebe, at Ogidi. The burial of Achebe, 82, who died in the United States on March 21, holds on Thursday. Secretary to the Government of Anambra State, Mr. Oseloka Obaze, confirmed the coming of the foreign dignitaries on Tuesday while briefing reporters on Achebe's burial arrangements. Obaze said President John Mahama of Ghana would be joining President Goodluck Jonathan and two other heads of state, whose attendance has been secured but awaiting final confirmation at the burial. Although the state government had not declared a public holiday for the burial, Obaze said it was mandatory for civil servants to attend the ceremonies slated for the Alex Ekwueme Square, Awka on Wednesday. Obaze said, "The whole effort is to give Prof. Achebe a burial that he deserves as a literary icon and a great Igbo hero. He was an international citizen." Achebe's body, which arrived in Enugu on Tuesday, will be received in Awka on Wednesday (today). Meanwhile, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Pius Anyim, on Tuesday joined other stakeholders to receive Achebe's corpse at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja. Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi; Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo; and the National Chairman, All Nigeria Peoples Party, Dr. Ogobonaya Onu, were among eminent personalities at the airport to receive the corpse. The British Airways aircraft, that conveyed his corpse, touched down at the airport about 4am. The corpse, which was prayed for by an Anglican Bishop, was driven from the international wing of the airport to the local wing in a Mercedes Benz ambulance with number plate CHINUA ACHEBE. Different Igbo cultural groups were at the local wing of the airport to welcome the renowned author of Things Fall Apart. Anyim, who said Achebe left an outstanding legacy, urged his family to bear the loss with fortitude. Obi, who represented other governors, said Achebe was a man of truth. He said, "I am representing the governors here. Achebe led a life of truth and humility. He tried to preach truth that will make us a better nation." Ike, the eldest son of Achebe, said his father worked tirelessly for the good of humanity. He said, "My father, as you know, was a writer, social critic, family man and one who worked tirelessly for the uplifting of his people. The definition of his people is actually very broad. It is for those who do not have a voice; it is for those who are oppressed and for those who are not really favoured. He stood against corruption and government oppression. "However, as a family, we will miss his presence and I will miss his guidance and advice. But it is not really a time for mourning. We are celebrating a remarkable man, who lived a remarkable life. And we are very grateful that the world is better because Chinua Achebe was here." Achebe's corpse, which arrived in Enugu about 12.36pm aboard a private aircraft, Overland Nigeria, marked 5N-BPE, was accompanied by his wife, Christy and children. The author's elder brother, Augustine, family members, Secretary to the Enugu State Government, Mr. Amechi Okolo, and commissioners were among personalities that were at the airport to receive his body. Okolo, who represented Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State, said the deceased would be missed by all. "We are mourning Achebe today because he was part of the state,'' he said. President of Ogidi Union Nigeria, Chief Obi Okaro, said Achebe exhibited true leadership qualities in the union, adding that the community would immortalise him. A university teacher, Prof. Ike Ndolo, canvassed that a national monument be named after the literary icon. Ndolo, who decried the poor reading culture in the country, called for a collaborative effort to fight the menace.

51 killed as powerful tornado slams Oklahoma City

At least 51 people,including seven children at an elementary school, were killed as a massive tornado slammed Oklahoma City in south central US leaving widespread destruction in its wake.Emergency personnel were scouring the rubble at flattened Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma, hours after the tornado struck Monday afternoon, a video from CNN affiliate KFOR showed. As nightfall approached, determined searchers in hard hats dug in the debris for students possibly trapped, but officials cited by the news channel described the work as a recovery, not rescue, effort. Footage from local television stations also showed a number of other levelled buildings and a funnel cloud stretching from the sky to the ground, kicking up debris. The tornado was estimated to be at least 2 miles wide at one point as it moved through Moore, in the southern part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, KFOR reported. Storm damage has been reported in Cleveland County, which includes Moore; McClain County, which includes Newcastle; and Oklahoma County, CNN reported citing Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management representative Terri Watkins. “After the ear-shattering howl of the killer storm subsided, survivors emerged from shelters to see an apocalyptic vision — the remnants of cars twisted and piled on each other to make what had been a parking lot look like a junk yard,” according to a CNN report. “Bright orange flames roaring from a structure that was blazing even as rain continued to fall,” it said. The preliminary rating of damage created by the tornado is at least EF4 (winds 166 to 200 mph) — the second most severe classification on a scale of zero to five — the National Weather Service said. Even as authorities and rescue workers struggled to get handle on the damage, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Centre warned the worst may be yet to come. “These storms are going to continue producing additional tornadoes. They’ll also produce some very, very large hail, perhaps larger than the size of baseballs,” NOAA’s Bill Bunting told CNN. The severe weather came after tornadoes and powerful storms ripped through Oklahoma and the Midwest earlier Monday and on Sunday damaging or destroying an estimated 300 homes.

Frank Lampard savours breaking Chelsea's goalscoring record

An emotional Frank Lampard admitted becoming Chelsea's record goalscorer was one of the best days of his career after scoring twice in the 2-1 win over Aston Villa.

Lampard scored twice in the second half to break Bobby Tambling's scoring record with 203 goals for Chelsea 12 years after arriving from West Ham.
The England international dedicated the feat to his late mother who he always remembers in his goal celebrations.
"I have been here a long time, I lost my mum a few years ago and she was my biggest supporter so it's for her," Lampard told Sky Sports 2HD. "It's right up there. Not much beats Munich [last season's Champions League success] because that was amazing for the team and the club but personally it is another great day and I am really pleased.
"Bobby Tambling is a great man and I was pleased to level, but didn't want to overcook that celebration out of respect for him.
"But then to go and break it I was delighted and I am just very pleased to do it today."
Lampard also thanked his team-mates and the Chelsea fans for helping him reach the landmark.
"It means everything, it's amazing," he said. "The support I have had from my team-mates I think you can see that there at the end and I am thankful to every one of them because they are the ones who put it on the plate for me sometimes.
"And the fans they have all been willing me to do it for a long time and have probably been frustrated alongside me not getting there.
"I am just delighted; the way the fans were there at the end is everything what it means to me."
Asked if he hoped for more special days next season with Chelsea, Lampard, who is out of contract this summer, concluded: "I hope so."

Murray’s clay season ‘going in the right direction’

Andy Murray complained he has been failing to take his chances but said his clay season was “going in the right direction” following the failure of his latest bid for a maiden title on his least favoured surface.
Murray lost 7-6 6-4 to Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych in the Madrid Open quarter-finals on Friday but will at least have the consolation of climbing above Roger Federer to number two in the world when the rankings are updated on Monday.
Federer’s third-round defeat by Kei Nishikori means the Swiss failed to defend the points he racked up by winning the Madrid title last year and Murray will regain the number two spot he held for three weeks last month.
The Scot next heads to this week’s Masters event in Rome as he continues his build-up to the French Open starting in Paris later this month.
“I need to do a better job of taking my chances,” he told a news conference after the Berdych defeat.
“I didn’t convert too many opportunities the whole week really,” added the 25-year-old.
“I managed to dig out the last couple of the matches and wasn’t obviously able to do that tonight.”
Murray said he was more satisfied with his performance at the Masters event in the Spanish capital than his efforts at the Monte Carlo Masters last month, when he lost to Federer’s compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka in the third round.
“This week was better than Monte Carlo so it’s going in the right direction,” he said.
“Tomas is a very good claycourt player. And, yeah, it was a close match. I had my chances,” he added.
“I think I’m playing okay. Some things I would like to do better but I did play very well in practice in the build-up to this tournament.
“I played a lot of sets with a lot of tough players and I played very well.
“So that’s a good sign. In Rome, the next couple of days I’ll get a better feel for how I’m playing.”

Mikel will welcome Jose Mourinho back to ‘crazy’ Chelsea

Mikel Obi has joined the chorus of player voices urging the Chelsea management to bring back Jose Mourinho for a second tenure at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho left Chelsea in 2007 and the Blues have had seven managers in  the time he has been gone
"The club is crazy, it is. But we have to keep doing our job. We're players,” Mikel told Skysports.
"The board, the owners, make the decision and we have to stick by whoever comes in. I don't know what's happening. It seems another manager is going to come in.
"Mourinho is a fantastic guy. He's a great guy. He's a fantastic human being, on and off the pitch. He knows how to motivate players, how to get the best out of players.
"If you work with him, from the first day he tells you what he wants from you. That's exactly how it's going to be.
"What he wants from you is what you have to give and this is something that he's managed to do well and if he's the one that's coming in it's going to be a massive, massive plus for us.
"Mourinho doesn't let you relax. He doesn't let you sit back and say 'I'm there now'. He wants to push you to your limits.
"That's what he works hard on with the players. But what a fantastic guy he is, outside and inside the football pitch."
Mikel was bought by Mourinho in 2006 and described the young midfielder then as ‘worth his weight in gold’.  It remains to be seen whether the Nigerian midfielder will feature prominently in Mourinho’s plans if he returns.

Fury over Boston suspect's burial

The body of one of the two men accused of pulling off the Boston Marathon attack has been buried in rural Virginia -- a development that local officials said caught them totally "off guard."

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's remains were accepted "by an interfaith coalition in that community -- they responded to our calls," his uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Maryland, told CNN. The body was buried in an unmarked grave in a Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Virginia, according to Tsarni.

"My tradition was that of a Muslim, and I have that tradition of burial, and people helped me with that," he said in a phone interview.

The death certificate released by Massachusetts authorities indicates that Tsarnaev, whose cause of death was listed as gunshot wounds and "blunt trauma to (his) head and torso," was interred at Al-Barzakh Muslim Cemetery in Doswell, which is about 25 minutes north of Richmond in a rural county of about 30,000 people.

While the news came out Friday, Bukhari Abdel-Alim from the Islamic Funeral Services of Richmond said Tsarnaev was actually buried the previous morning.

Speaking Friday from the cemetery, which his organization owns, Abdel-Alim said there was "no intention to ... make anybody angry," but that he and others felt obligated to do what "God says to do" by putting Tsarnaev's "body back into the earth."

"It's not a political thing (but) he can't bury himself," said Abdel-Alim, adding his only regret was that Tsarnaev "wasn't buried sooner." "...Whether he was Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, when you're dead you need to be buried or taken care of, not just left in a funeral home."

Police in Worcester, Massachusetts, had announced Thursday a "courageous and compassionate individual came forward" to take Tsarnaev's remains out of Worcester, where the body had been at a funeral home while Tsarni and officials tried to determine what to do with it.

The chairman of the Caroline County, Virginia, board of supervisors, Floyd W. Thomas, said Friday afternoon he couldn't then confirm or deny that Tsarnaev is buried in his county and that he hadn't seen the death certificate. As he pointed out, "standard practice" is that local officials are not notified that a burial is taking place.

According to Thomas and county Sheriff Tony Lippa, neither they or any other officials in the county knew about plans to bury Tsarnaev in that area. They were not consulted, nor did they provide permission for such a burial to happen, said Thomas.

At the least, he later told CNN, county officials "would have preferred to be in a position to ... prepare for it a little better."

News of Tsarnaev's burial in the county upset residents like Rhonda Richardson, who said she thinks the body should have been taken to where his parents are in southern Russia.

"He killed Americans on American soil, therefore he shouldn't be buried here," she told CNN.

At Friday's press conference, Thomas acknowledged residents' concerns and said "I understand how you feel, and I feel the same way." He said Caroline County does not want to be associated with such a "terrible crime" that took place more than 500 miles away, even though Tsarnaev has "no ties to Caroline County."

"We do not wish to be the home of the remains of one of those perpetrators," he said.

Lippa, the county's sheriff, said members of Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli's office are also looking into the matter "to make sure all legalities were being followed." But unless something wasn't done right -- in which case, Thomas said, "we would look into undoing what happened" -- officials' hands are tied, he said.

"As long as everything was done legally, there's really very little that we can do," Thomas said.

Officials were also concerned about securing the private cemetery against possible trespassing protesters or those who might attempt to deface the grave site.

While a sheriff's deputy was stationed there Friday, officials said the county does not have money set aside to provide security.

It's all a headache that Thomas, for one, never saw coming.

"Of all the localities in the United States, this was probably the last one we would have thought of," he said.

What would happen to the body of the man who, along with his younger brother, Dzhokhar, was accused of setting off two deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon on April 15 had been a nearly month-long puzzle.

The body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed in a police pursuit days after the bombings, went unclaimed for nearly two weeks. A funeral home in Worcester -- about 40 miles west of downtown Boston -- eventually accepted the remains.

But protesters in Worcester made it clear they didn't want the body buried there, with one holding a sign that read, "Bury the garbage in the landfill." And the city manager of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Tsarnaev lived, said he would not allow Tsarnaev to be buried in the city, asserting that possible protests and media coverage would disrupt the community.

It also appeared that sending the body overseas was an unlikely option -- Tamerlan Tsarnaev's parents in the Russian region of Dagestan said they would not fly his body back to Russia for burial, citing passport problems, spokeswoman Heda Saratova said.

In a press release issued Friday, the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond said that a "private Virginia citizen" and licensed counselor named Martha Mullen "quietly coordinated efforts to resolve the problem of where to bury Tsarnaev's remains."

That included e-mails exchanged with representatives of the church she belonged to, as well as local Muslim, Jewish and Hindu representatives. She contacted Worcester police "after receiving an offer of a burial plot from the administration of the Islamic Funeral Services of Virginia," the society said.

Mullen also talked with her local pastor about the moral implications of her spearheading the effort.

"Jesus tells us, 'Love your enemies,' " she said, according to the Islamic Society. "Not to hate them, even after they are dead."

Abdel-Alim, who is vice president of the Islamic Funeral Services of Virginia and attended Thursday's burial, stressed Friday "there is no agreement with (Tsarnaev's) actions, whatsover, in any form or fashion." At the same time, he said "somebody needed to take responsibility."

"We were able to do so, and that's what we did," he said.

Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaev, appeared confused by Thursday's announcement from Worcester police. Speaking to CNN from Russia by phone Thursday evening, Zubeidat Tsarnaev said she didn't know whether her son was buried or where.

Tsarni -- who was the main point of contact over what to do with Tamerlan Tsarnaev's remains, according to Abdel-Alim -- said Friday that he called his nephew's father Thursday "to give him an update, but I did not tell him where he was buried."

"He didn't even ask me," Tsarni said.

Zubeidat Tsarnaev told CNN in late April that her husband couldn't travel to the United States, saying he was too ill. She said she eventually would be interested in heading to the United States to see her younger son, despite pending shoplifting charges against her in Massachusetts, where she once lived.

Tsarni said Friday he was "completely outraged that (the parents) have not been here for their children."

"My assumption is that they must be here, just to help with the investigation at least," Tsarni said.