A former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Obadiah Mailafia, is dead.
Mr Mailafia, 64, died on Sunday morning from an undisclosed illness.
An associate of Mr Mailafia, John Hayab, confirmed his death to Leadership newspaper.
Mr Hayab is also the chairman of the , Kaduna chapter.
Apart from being a former CBN deputy governor, Mr Mailafia was also a popular public commentator who was always willing to share his view on public affairs.
Allegations against government
Mr Mailafia was quite critical of the President Muhammadu-led administration especially on policy issues and insecurity.
Last year, while appearing on a radio programme with Nigeria Info Abuja 95.1FM, Mr Mailafia alleged that some pardoned terrorists revealed that a serving northern governor was a Boko Haram leader.
Mr Mailafia was invited for questioning by the State Security Service based on the allegation.
He later retracted the claim, saying he had no evidence to defend it.
He also alluded to the existence of a certain ‘Jigawa cabal’ that was enriching itself by frustrating the CBN’s effort to sustain the value of the Naira vis a vis the American dollar.
Death should be probed
A former presidential aide, Reno Omokri, in a youtube video has said that the death of Mr Mailafia is fishy and thus should be independently investigated.
Mr Omokri said there might be more to the passing of Mr Mailafia than meets the eyes considering his tough poistions on critical national issues.
Biography
He assumed office as CBN’s Deputy Governor (Policy) on Monday, 9 May, 2005.
Prior to his joining the CBN, Mr Mailafia had served as the Chief Economist responsible for Strategic Planning and Corporate Reporting of African Development Bank (ADB) in Tunisia.
He was born on the 24 December, 1956 in Randa, Sanga Local Government Area of Kaduna State. He attended Mada Hills Secondary School, Akwanga between 1970 and 1974 where he won the Commissioner of Education Award for Academic Distinction.
For his post-secondary school education, the deceased attended Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria from 1974 to 1978 and graduated with
BSc in Social Sciences with the highest grade of the graduating class in Political Science honors.
Science honors.
Between 1980 and 1982, he completed his Master’s degree while working as a Graduate Assistant at ABU, Zaria.
He won a French Foreign Ministry Scholarship, which took him to France from 1984 to 1986 to study International Economics with M. Phil from the famous ENA-IIAP in Paris, France.
He later completed his Doctoral Studies in 1994 and was awarded D.Phil at the University of Oxford in England with a specialty in International Economics and Political Economy.
Mr Mailafia was a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Scholar and received the Webb Medley Award at the University of Oxford.
He had a distinguished career spanning academia, government, consulting, and international service.
He was a Fellow of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos.
He was also at some point on the teaching staff of Oxford University, United Kingdom.
