A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr
Obadiah Mailafia, says many of the bandits terrorising the country were
sponsored by persons who wanted to push former President Goodluck Jonathan out
of power at all cost.
Mailafia said this during an interview with The PUNCH on
Thursday.
He said, “During the 2015 elections they brought in
thousands of foreigners into this country, armed them because it was a case of
if Goodluck Jonathan doesn’t surrender, there will be war. They were ready for
civil war; they were not ready for peace.
“Of course, Jonathan handed over to them and then they
turned their backs on the hoodlums and the hoodlums said ‘look, you brought us
here and we are still here’.”
Mailafia, who was the Presidential candidate of the African
Democratic Congress in the last election, said he was also convinced that some
foreign powers were behind the bandits.
“There are certain world powers that want to destroy our
country. That is what I believe. There was a container load of weapons that
were brought in from Turkey. Another time some were brought in from Iran. But
nobody probed further and everything was swept under the carpet and that was
the end of it,” he said.
The former CBN deputy governor, who was last year invited by
the Department of State Services and the police for saying that an unnamed
northern governor was a Boko Haram commander, said the fact that other people
have come out to say far worse but have not been invited, shows that he was
unfairly targeted.
“My name is Mailafia and I am always for peace. I want peace
in this country because I know without peace there can be no development but I
think the people in government have to be objective and treat us equally.
Someone says one thing and they go after him. Others say worse things and they
are treated with kid gloves,” he said.
The former CBN deputy governor also disagreed with the
approach of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi on the issue of amnesty for bandits.
Mailafia said it was wrong to offer such hoodlums amnesty
and then make no provision for the victims, adding that they have no agenda
other than to destroy.
He argued that appeasing the bandits would never work even
as he said the Niger Delta militancy and the banditry ravaging the country are
two different things.
“I do not believe that the Niger Delta militancy can be
compared to the terrorists. These people (terrorists) are not even bandits. A
bandit is a common thief or a brigand. The ‘agbero’ are bandits. These people
carrying sophisticated weapons and rockets are not bandits. They are
terrorists.
“They have killed, they have maimed, they have raped and
they have wreaked havoc,” Mailafia said.
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