Obadiah Mailafia faces state harassment and death threats after radio interview
Dr.Obadiah Mailafia, the former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has been forced to take extraordinary security precautions after receiving death threats and being repeatedly interrogated by national security officers. The threats come after Dr. Mailaifa publicly challenged official narratives about the widespread murder and displacement of civilians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
In a radio interview given on 10 August, Dr. Mailafia reported that the devastating attacks by Islamist Fulani militias against the indigenous, predominantly Christian farming communities of the Middle Belt are part of a political project and have taken on genocidal proportions.
The ultimate goal, Mailafia claimed, is to drive the indigenous people off their ancestral land and transform the Middle Belt into grazing land for the Fulani herdsmen. Mailafia believes that Nigeria’s delicate political balance would be tipped decisively in favour of militant Islamism should this project succeed. Mailafia crossed a political red line by stating that the perpetrators receive material and political support from elements within the Nigerian state. “The government has a hand in the killings,” he said. “No doubt about it.”
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