LAGOS, Nigeria — The leader of a hard-line Islamist sect was killed while in police custody just hours after being captured Thursday, four days after his previously little-known group set off a wave of violence in northern Nigeria by attacking police stations and government buildings, an eyewitness told The Wall Street Journal.

Hours after he was captured by the Nigerian Army, Mohammed Yusuf was handed over to the police, who shot him to death in front of the police station in the northern town of Maiduguri, said Yaruna Dauda, a local reporter.

“They shot him publicly, right in front of the police station,” said Mr. Dauda, who reports for the Voice of America from Maiduguri. “I saw the corpse. I recognized his face.”

A senior police official had earlier said that Mr. Yusuf, leader of the Boko Haram, a fundamentalist group that believes Western education is against Islam, was captured in Maiduguri, where the group was based and where the most intense fighting occurred.

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LAGOS, Nigeria — Fighting between members of an Islamist fundamentalist group and government security forces in northern Nigeria entered a fourth day, displacing thousands of civilians, aid agencies said.

Up to 4,000 civilians were forced to flee their homes in and around the town of Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Borno State, according to the National Emergency Management Agency, the Associated Press reported.

By Wednesday evening, police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said the fighting was being contained. “The military has taken over the situation,” he said. “Very soon it will be over.”

Earlier in the day, army officials told reporters that militants had taken control of six neighborhoods in Maiduguri, where the most intense fighting occurred.

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ABUJA, Nigeria – International oil companies expressed unanimous disapproval Tuesday of proposed legislation to revamp the oil and gas industry in Nigeria.

At a senate hearing on the bill, executives of U.S. producers Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., Italy’s Eni SpA, as well as Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell PLC said the bill would cost the firms billions of dollars and drastically diminish foreign investment in Nigeria’s oil industry.

Government officials didn’t respond to requests to comment on the hearing.

Nigeria’s export revenue comes almost entirely from oil. The bill is the centerpiece of changes initiated by President Umaru …

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By Will Connors

Ghana, riding high from President Barack Obama’s visit this month, quietly signed a long-awaited development plan for one of the biggest oil discoveries in West Africa in the past decade.

The agreement — reached July 15 with a group of international oil companies after months of negotiations — brings Ghana much closer to its stated goal of producing oil by the second half of 2010.

Celebrated for its democratic rule and stability on a continent more often associated with coups d’état and violence, Ghana is trying to figure out how to handle the oil discovery responsibly and avoid the problems that have beset other oil-rich African nations.

In 2007, a joint venture backed partly by two American oil companies discovered significant oil deposits off the coast of southwestern Ghana. The Jubilee Field, the most promising find, is estimated to hold at least 650 million barrels of recoverable oil, with estimates going as high as two billion barrels of oil.

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ABUJA, Nigeria — An Islamic fundamentalist group in northern Nigeria expanded its attacks into three additional states on Monday, a day after at least 50 people died during fighting between the group and security forces in Bauchi State, aid workers and police said.

On Monday, fundamentalist group Boko Haram, which means “education is prohibited” in Hausa, launched attacks in three northern states, where at least 100 bodies were counted by a reporter in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, the BBC reported. Casualty figures couldn’t be confirmed.

Fighting was also reported in Kano and Yobe states. Police spokesmen didn’t respond Monday to requests for information.

Boko Haram on Sunday attacked a police station in the northern city of Bauchi after several of the group’s leaders were arrested last week. Police responded to Sunday’s attacks by converging on several of the group’s hideouts, killing at least 50 members and arresting more than 100, police spokesmen said.

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By WILL CONNORS

ABUJA, Nigeria — At least 100 suspects have been arrested following clashes Sunday in northern Nigeria between security forces and armed Islamic fundamentalists that left dozens dead, according to news reports and a police spokesman.

Exact casualty figures weren’t known. Police reported that all the dead were militants.

“A group of religious fundamentalists who believe that anything related to Western education is completely prohibited attacked a police station in Bauchi this morning,” Bauchi police spokesman Mohamed Barau told The Wall Street Journal.

He said the attackers used bows and arrows, locally made grenades, guns, knives and sticks. Security forces tracked the men to a residence and “upon arriving there the men opened fire, and the police, in self-defense, returned fire and shot some of them,” Mr. Barau said.

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ACCRA, Ghana — Nigerian militants launched a brazen attack on a loading dock used by oil vessels in the commercial hub of Lagos late Sunday night, the first recent attack by militants outside the oil-rich Niger Delta region and a significant escalation of a monthslong campaign that has shut down production of one million barrels of oil a day.

Hours after the attack, the Nigerian government released a suspected militant leader, Henry Okah, and dropped all charges against him, making good on a pledge it made as part of talks over an amnesty deal. It wasn’t clear whether Mr. Okah’s release, a demand of militants, would go far enough to curb violence related to the oil industry.

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By Jonathan Weisman and Will Connors

ACCRA, Ghana — The first African-American president came to the continent of his father to exhort Africans on Saturday to rid themselves of corruption, embrace democracy and move from the grand, often violent, struggles of liberation and tribalism to the quieter, more potent movement of stability and economic growth.

In a half-hour speech described as a major foreign policy address, U.S. President Barack Obama stood before Ghana’s boisterous parliament, with a backdrop of festive kente cloth and adoring crowds cheering outside. The speech was broadcast on radio stations throughout the continent.

U.S. embassies in Africa held watch parties, movie theaters carried it live and what Internet access there is in Africa crackled with Twitter feeds and e-mailed snippets. The message was one that perhaps only Mr. Obama could have delivered: Africa’s excuses are over. Africans must lift themselves up.

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(photo: AP)

By WILL CONNORS and SARAH CHILDRESS

ACCRA, Ghana — President Barack Obama arrived here late Friday for his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office, and was greeted by crowds Saturday. Also greeting him will be high expectations — and a host of diplomatic and security challenges that have long bedeviled U.S. policy makers on the continent.

In Accra, Ghana’s seaside capital, anticipation among residents has been bubbling for weeks. Radio stations play local songs written for the president’s arrival, billboards welcoming him dot the streets, newspaper editorials urge the nation to behave well, and memorabilia dealers are scrambling to meet demand for items bearing Mr. Obama’s image.

Mr. Obama said Saturday that his visit to Ghana was designed to illustrate that “Africa is not separate from world affairs,” and added Africa is a fully integrated part of the global economy, speaking during a meeting with Ghanaian President John Atta Mills.

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(photo: AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigerian officials are considering paying Niger Delta-based militants cash for turning in their weapons as part of an amnesty deal, despite government statements to the contrary, according to a person involved in the talks.

Violence persisted over the weekend, with Nigeria’s main umbrella militant group claiming an attack Sunday on an oil-well head belonging to Royal Dutch Shell PLC. The attack was the third on Shell-operated infrastructure since President Umaru Yar’Adua announced the amnesty effort last month.

For weeks, senior government officials have conducted closed-door meetings with representatives of militant leaders and have agreed in principle that money-for-arms should be on the bargaining table, the person involved in the talks said.

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