It will be unwise to go after Sunday Igboho - Mailafia tells security agents

A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Obadiah Mailafia has told security agents not to arrest activist Sunday Adeyemi ‘Igboho’. 

The economist said this on Wednesday, March 23, 2021, during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, adding that he is fighting for his people.

“Let me make this point clear. Under our constitution, under our laws and by the precepts of international laws, global ethics, natural justice and equity, the people who are about to die have a right to defend themselves, so they (security agencies) will be wise not to go after Igboho,” he said. “They should leave that man alone; he is a hero of his people.”

Igboho shot to prominence in January 2021 when he issued a one-week ultimatum to criminal herders to leave Ibarapa, Oyo State following a crisis that hit the area.

Unprecedented LevelNigeria has in recent times seen a rise in insecurity with many resorting to self-defence, a development which Mailafia has lamented.

“This is totally unprecedented. This is the worst time ever in the history of Nigeria,” he noted.

“You can’t even compare with Abacha’s time; Abacha’s time was a golden era compare with what is happening. You think Abacha would have tolerated all these? You can’t travel on these roads, killings everywhere, destructions everywhere.”

While reiterating that there is an ethnic domination agenda in the country, he alleged that there is a conspiracy by world powers and the elites to destroy Nigeria.

“World powers want to destroy Nigeria and what they have done is to come and meet some people and tell them, ‘You are born to rule’. There is an agenda (ex-President Olusegun) Obasanjo called Fulanisation and enforcement of one particular religion against the rest,” he added.

On the recent attack on the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, the former CBN deputy governor said the incident is an attack on the people of the state.

“This attempt on the life of an executive governor and incumbent of a state is an attempted attack on the entire people of the state. Those who are trying to do this wicked thing need to understand the implication of what they are trying to do,” Mailafia said.

“If the governor of a state cannot feel safe to go to his farm, how will the ordinary Benue people feel going to their farms? This is a very bad precedence.”