The death of Dr Mailafa is indeed a tragic one, what is more saddening is that it’s been 5 days since the demise of this hero and speaker of the poor and oppressed and still there has not been any condolence message by the president rtd Gen. Buhari or from Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai the executive governor of Kaduna state where the later freedom fighter hailed from.

The popular phrase, that might be best used to explain the life and times of Dr Obadiah is “Hunted alive, not honoured in death.”  a former Deputy Governor of the apex bank of the country, Central Bank of Nigeria. Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, who died in the early hours of Sunday, September 19, at the age of 64 at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, after a brief illness.

Brief Profile of Dr Obadiah Mailafa

Mailafia was born on December 24, 1956, in the Sanga Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

He later graduated top of his class at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in 1978 with a B.Sc. Honours Social Sciences degree (Politics, Economics, and Sociology). He also has an M.Sc. from the same institution.

He subsequently won a French Government Scholarship to France, where he earned a Certificate in French Language and Civilisation from the University of Clermont-Ferrand in 1985.

Mailafia later proceeded to the United Kingdom as a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Scholar at Oriel College, earning a DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1995.

As a consistent ferocious critic of the Buhari regime, in September 2020, Mailafia alleged that a northern governor was a Boko Haram commander and moneybag. The Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force invited him to their Abuja and Jos offices several times, quizzing him, forcing him to recant his statement.

The former deputy governor, who was the Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress in the 2019 election, was an unapologetic critic of the Buhari regime and had advocated for public sector and exchange rate reforms.

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In his last interview with The PUNCH, Mailafia said the refusal of the CBN to sell foreign exchange to bureau de change operators may not yield the expected result because corrupt bankers would frustrate it while the BDC operators were being shielded by a “Jigawa cabal”.

He had also lamented that Nigeria was operating a “dollarised” economy which was hampering economic growth. Untill his death, was an aced columnist with The PUNCHNG