Mailafia: Middle Belt Forum

[Toyin Falola]

MIDDLE BELT FORUM

Press Statement

The attention of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) has been drawn to invitations extended by the Department of State Service (DSS) to the former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and presidential candidate of the African Democracy Congress (ADC) in the 2019 polls, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, over his recent interview with Nigerian Info 93.3FM.

Going by the startling revelations disclosed by the Oxford Economist that attracted outrage from within and outside the country, Dr. Mailafia would, after his initial appearance at the Jos office of the DSS, insist that he stood by the media interview. Few days later, he was re-invited by the secret police in Jos, and later banned from speaking to the media on the matter.

Considering these invitations by the DSS to this patriotic Nigerian who is a distinguished son of the Middle Belt, we are worried that after appearing before the secret police twice without a fail, another invitation was issued to Dr Mailafia on Friday August 21, 2020 by the Nigeria Police requesting him to appear before them tomorrow, Monday August 24, 2020 in Abuja.

In what may be seen as subtle acts of intimidating alternative voices, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. Rt. Hon. Ghali Umar Na’Abba, was also a guest of the secret police in Abuja last Monday where he was grilled over his media interview in which he was quoted to have called for self-determination for Nigerians.

Looking at the travails of both Rt. Hon Na’Abba and Dr. Mailafia in the hands of security agencies over their comments on national issues, there seems to be a deliberate ploy to stifling alternative voices. As a Forum representing all ethnic nationalities in the North, for which the Oxford Economist is a member, we call on the police to stop further harassment of both the former Speaker and ADC presidential candidate whose comments were only meant to serve as wake-up calls for the nation’s security agencies to tackle the raging insurgency and grave insecurity shredding our country.

The MBF is in constant touch with Dr Mailafia since his ordeal in the hands of the DSS, and are completely kept abreast of the matter. As a Forum, we are worried that there are attempts by some unscrupulous people to either change the narratives or ridicule the source of Dr. Mailafia's disclosure as unreliable.

The Forum wishes to declare that Dr. Mailafia’s disclosure is in tandem with realities on the ground. We challenge the nation’s security forces to stop rural killings and ensure the safe return of our sacked communities now in various Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps back to their ancestral lands.

Just last Wednesday in Zuru, Kebbi State, the Inspector General of the Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, disclosed that security agencies have discovered that banditry rocking our nation has assumed an international dimension, with Nigerien, Sudanese, Malian and Libyan bandits, among others, unleashing terror on Nigerians. Is that disclosure by the IG not in tandem with Mailafia’s disclosure?

We call on both the DSS and the Police to stop further harassment of Dr. Mailafia and concentrate on their core mandates of securing lives and property of citizens. We condemn a situation where the police are simply engaged in persecuting those who are raising their voices to call the attention of Nigerians and securities agencies to the real enemies of our nation.

In exposing the sinister plot of our enemies, Dr Mailafia has not committed any crime. What the security agencies should do now is to thoroughly deploy Mailafia’s disclosures and bring to an end the devious plans of destroying our country. We call on all patriotic Nigerians to rise up and mount pressure on security agencies to stop further assault on Dr. Mailafia who has truly demonstrated his patriotism to his Fatherland as contained in his disclosures.



Signed:



Dr. Pogu Bitrus

(NATIONAL PRESIDENT)

Sunday August 23, 2020.


Sent from my iPhone

[segun ogungbemi]

A just solidarity call by the Middle Belt Forum. 

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

What the Middle Belt Forum should encourage Mailafia to do is present his allegations in court:

1. That govt is behind Kaduna killings.

2. That Boko Haram intends to start a war in the South West and South East

3. That a northern governor is commander of Boko Haram.

These are serious allegations capable of destabilising the nation and cannot be left unsubstantiated if true and the evidence will help police ( whom Mailafia should have first informed before going on air) stop the threat to national security and stability involved in the purported plots.  

Freedom of speech needs to be exercised with (adult) responsibility at all times.   It does not cover reckless immature allegations especially by a highly educated Nigerian who ought to know better.

At least three  Attorney Generals should be heading to the courts by now to get to the roots of the allegations in view of its potentially disruptive effects on the nation:

1.  The federal Attorney general in view of the allegations against a member of the National Council of State  of being a commander of Boko Haram.

2. The Kaduna Attorney General in view of the allegation that the state government is deliberately instigating instability in the state between ethnicities.

3.  The Lagos State Attorney General where the interview was originally aired because of its alarmist potential for instability and unrest if it is deliberate falsehood.

If these allegations are substantiated and proven to be true Mailafia should be hailed as a national hero.  If not he stands condemned and should face the consequences.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

OA

Reading between the lines,  you are not giving Mailafia the benefit of doubt but leaning towards the official line. This allegation is not brand new. In fact, during the Jonathan administration  were similar allegations  not made?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mailafia: Middle Belt Forum

 

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

GE:

Reading between the lines, Dr Mailafia has not given himself the benefit of the doubt and insist on the courage of his conviction rather than soft pedal to the official line on being a Buhari loyalist and backtracking that he got some of his allegations from Market traders rumours ( a partial admission of guilt before trial which falls below the bar of a person of his high educational attainment.)

Well, in view of the gravity of the allegations and the insistence of supporters ( including MBF) that he stood by his disclosures  in the interview, this ' no mind me' caveat is not good enough and is rather late.  A whole tribe of governors are under the pall of suspicion and are awaiting the result of their call for police investigation into the matter.  

The law will therefore inevitably take its course.  It cannot be partial in selectively punishing the Media.

[Abolaji Adekeye]

Some of us have a penchant for convicting people based on rumors, conjecture and downright speculation. Semper necessitas... .

There are certain utterances that should be limited to the beer parlor of ideas. If you go on live radio to make such grave statements and allegations, you have a responsibility to show evidence. 

Obadiah is a man I have a lot of time for but he seems to have played to the gallery on this one.

Abolaji A. Adekeye

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

When this story broke I predicted an outcome along these lines.

There shall be no investigation, and if any, the public will be given no information about it. 

There shall be no prosecution of Mailafia.

The governors in question will be silent.

The strategy, from the GEJ govt to the present govt, is to do their best to silence such embarrassing declarations on Boko Haram.

I am happy to be proved wrong.

It shall be interesting if a few months from now, or even a year from now, any action is taken on this subject and made known to the public.

I suspect that Boko Haram is the work of radical members of the Northern Muslim elite, with sympathies even among those not directly involved.

I understand Atiku Abubakar as a central provider of ideological inspiration for the group in their 2011 resurgence.

I expect that he also gave the group economic support at that insurgence. 

Atiku ought to have been tried for treason and imprisoned when he threatened Nigeria with violent change when he failed to get the PDP Presidential nomination for 2011,  which, on account of the PDP's power at the time, would have given him the Presidency as the Northern consensus candidate, an anointing he worked hard for only to be thwarted by the PDP's decision to support GEJ for the 2011 Presidency.

His failure, in resonance with the view of some, that the PDP Presidential platform should go to the (Muslim) North in 2011, in keeping with their rotational Presidency formula, created bitter division in the North, leading to the mantra "power must return to the North", an orientation Boko Haram built upon in its 2011 resurgence on GEJ's entry into the Presidency, depicting themselves as Muslim soldiers  fighting an infidel govt, restricting themselves to bombing churches and machine gunning their worshippers, bombing and killing soldiers in military barracks, giving Christians a deadline to leave the North or face the consequences,  but leaving the general, non-Christian, non-govt public untouched, except  in killing informers agst them and perhaps, rival clerics, something they have done at various points in their history.

The level of division this strategy created in the country, as represented by orientations amongst the Northern Muslim elite and populace, is summed up by Bamanga Tukur, then chairman of GEJ's own party, the PDP, describing  Boko Haram  as ''freedom fighters'', a stance he moved away from years later, perhaps on observing the sheer devastation they were creating.

Various declarations of Boko Haram as ''our Muslim brothers''-Sheikh Gumi, ''loyal Muslims''- a Northern Muslim group,  flowed from various public figures in the North, even in the midst of urging them to desist from further carnage.

Bamanga Tukur should have been removed from his office and questioned when he described Boko Haram as ''freedom fighters''.

Wole Soyinka should have been questioned as to why he described the 2011 Boko Haram resurgence as the work of aggrieved Northern Muslim politicians who had lost out in the political  game. 

GEJ's National Security Officer Andrew Azazi should have been questioned as to why he stated, years after Soyinka,  that the 2011 Boko Haram resurgence was the work of discontented PDP politicians who had lost out in the enablement of who may or may not have a platform for office, a veiled reference to the PDP's rotational Presidency principle.

After Azazi died in a helicopter crash shortly after, and as some claim, because of making this declaration, his subordinates declared that they had information on the backers of Boko Haram and would share the information with the public. No news from them since.

GEJ once declared that Boko Haram were in his govt. Nigerians made some noises about this and the declaration died away. There has been no news about efforts to fish out and prosecute these figures.

Then Borno APC governor Kassim Shettima should have been removed and tried for keeping the Chibok school open agst the orders of the fed govt that schools in such outlying regions should be closed, his actions leading to the Chibok kidnap, the last straw that destroyed the international reputation of the GEJ govt in spite of the huge progress they had made agst Boko Haram, a reputation destroying occurrence that mobilised public opinion towards  Buhari's victory on the APC platform as a former general who had defeated Matisasine and would ''lead from the front'' in the war agst Boko Haram.

When Boko Haram publicly chose Buhari as their negotiator when they agreed to negotiate with the govt, if Buhari had agreed, instead of turning down the invitation, perhaps in fear of being seen as an agent of the group and keeping in mind his Presidential aspirations, which might have been destroyed by such an association even if the country were to gain from his acting as liaison between the govt and Boko Haram, the story would have been different today.

Buhari, however, is not a statesmen and has used the Boko Haram problem in promoting his political aspirations rather than using his clout as the most promnient Northern Muslim politician  to help address the subject decisively.

Why has there never been any public trial of Boko Haram members, from GEJ's time to the present?

Why is no info ever forthcoming on their enablers?

My conjectures- Boko Haram, in its current post 2011 escalation is deeply shaped by the aspirations of radical figures among the Northern Muslim elite.

That is why no information will be given as to their backers.

In GEJ's case, he operated from a position of great caution and subtle but ultimately decisive moves in addressing the problem. Arresting Atiku could have looked volatile to him on account of the restiveness of the North in light of the controversies over the Presidency. The level of power wielded through  such fears is demonstrated by the declaration in support of a deadly terrorist group by the chairman  of the President's own party. During the struggle, he was recurently opposed by the likes of Buhari, then Adamawa  state governor Murtala Nyako and the Borno elders, with some  members of the populace also showing some allegiance  to Boko Haram until they  saw them in their true colours. 

In the current situation, its possible that Boko Haram already control territory in the North East. They are certainly not on the run and are at best in a stalemate with the army.

I dont see them being defeated by the Buhari govt which has no decisive will in that direction, operating within a conflict of interests-allegiance to the ethno-religious vision of the group and commitment to the nation. 

We should be ready for the gradual acceptance of the idea of Boko Haram keeping the territory they hold. 

Is there any fundamental difference between Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen militia, openly managed by Miyetti Allah, run by the country's most elite Fulani and sustained by govt policy and monies?

Is Nigeria not already in the Lebanon phase, where a terrorist group became part of govt?

Are we not moving towards control of the nation by ethno-religious supremacists?

How wild or factual or close to fact are my conjectures?

thanks

toyin

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