The Federal Capital Territory Police Command has arrested the mastermind of the foiled robbery of a first-generation bank in the Mpape area of Abuja last Saturday.

The suspect, a barman identified as Ernest was nabbed at his hideout by police detectives and is presently being held at the command headquarters by old CBN building, Garki, Abuja.

The police had earlier arrested four suspects and gunned down the fourth member of the robbery gang identified as Patrick during the operation.

The FCT Commissioner of Police, Bala Ciroma, had on Tuesday paraded the gang members including a bank employee, Larry Ehizo, Timothy Joe, Princewill Obinna, and Elijah David.

Ernest Ewin told the police his side of the story in the failed robbery. Ehizo who drove the gang members to the bank in the robbery expected to rake in N7 million said he lied in his first statement.

The Kwara State Government has said the late Olusola Saraki’s building, popularly called Ile Arugo (old people’s home), was demolished before dawn yesterday to avoid confrontation.

There were reports that some women had planned a protest against the revocation of the land where the building was located by the state government.

The enforcement team of the state government arrived at Ile Arugbo about 3am for the demolition exercise with some initial resistance.

Kwara State Commissioner for Communications, Murtala Olanrewaju, in a statement described the planned protest as needless.

He also clarified that the state government was not served any court papers on the property he noted meant for the civil service clinic.

The Federal Government says it is studying the situation on change of West African Economic and Monetary Union, UEMOA currency, Eco, to be used as ECOWAS single currency.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, made this known in a statement by Yunusa Abdullahi, her Special Adviser, Media and Communication, in Abuja.

Eight West African countries have agreed to change the name of their common currency to Eco, thereby effectively severing the CFA franc’s links to former colonial ruler France.

The countries include Benin republic, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo with Ahmed saying Nigeria as a country would respond in due course.

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has decried that the country’s debt stock was being misrepresented by those he described as scaremongers.

According to Lai Mohammed, Nigeria is not in debt trouble as being circulated as the nation is within a reasonable debt to its Gross Domestic Product ratio.

He explained that the debt was an accumulation of successive government activities, adding that the economic state of the country was good.