Blank Stare, Crickets Chirping

Uh, yeah ...

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has disappeared from his haven in Nigeria, just as he was to have been handed over to face trial on war crimes charges, Nigerian officials said Tuesday.

Taylor vanished Monday night from his villa in the southern town of Calabar, the government said. Last week, Nigeria's government agreed - under pressure from the U.S. and others - to surrender him to stand before a U.N. tribunal on charges related to civil war in Liberia's neighbor, Sierra Leone. President Olusegun Obasanjo was to travel to the United States this week for a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday.

A government statement said Obasanjo was creating a panel to investigate Taylor's disappearance on Monday night. The statement raised the possibility he might have been abducted, but did not elaborate.

Nigerian presidential spokesman Oluremi Oyo said members of Taylor's Nigerian security detail had been arrested.

The presidential statement offered no details on how Taylor's disappearance was discovered or whether he was being hunted. Nigeria's Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday that dozens of people who had been living with Taylor in the villa in a walled government compound had left Monday and were flying to Lagos en route to an unknown destination.