Mailafia appears before DSS over Boko Haram claims

A former presidential candidate, Obadiah Mailafia, will meet with the Department of State Services (DSS) on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 over a recent claim he made about terrorist group, Boko Haram's sponsors.

During an interview on a radio station on Monday, August 10, Mailafia claimed he had an intelligence report that a state governor is a commander of Boko Haram.

He said he got the information from talking to some former fighters of the terrorist group that has wreaked havoc in the northeast over the past 11 years.

Mailafia's claim attracted public attention when a video of the interview was posted online, an attention which has now earned him an invitation with the secret police.

Mailafia told The Punch that the DSS invited him to appear at the agency's Jos office at noon on Wednesday.

During his Monday interview, the former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) also claimed that Boko Haram is planning an invasion of the southern region in a bid to trigger a second civil war.

He said, "They are already in the South, in the rain forests of the South. They are everywhere.

"They told us that when they finish these rural killings, they will move to phase two.

"Phase two is that they will go into urban cities, going from house to house killing prominent people.

"I can tell you this is the game plan. By 2022, they want to start a civil war in Nigeria.

"Don't joke with what I am saying I have a PhD from Oxford University. I am a central banker, we don't talk nonsense.

"I have this from the highest authority, some of the commanders of Boko Haram."

The Boko Haram insurgency has led to the death of over 30,000 people, and displacement of over 2.5 million in the northeast and surrounding border countries in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.