Goodbye, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia – by Farooq Kperogi

Dr Obadiah Mailafia The death of Dr. Obadiah Mailafia on September 19 touched me more deeply than I thought it would. He was an exceptionally smart, conciliatory, and gracious man who, in spite of appearances to the contrary, had no space for hate and grudges in his heart. He and I publicly clashed on at least two occasions. On both occasions, it was he, a much older person, who privately initiated reconciliation with me. Our first clash happened in 2016 at an online forum called the USAAfrica Dialogue Series where he expressed what I thought were unfair, conspiratorial, facts-free, anti-Muslim opinions. I challenged him with counter facts. Dr Farouk Kperogi Instead of responding to me on the forum, he reached out privately and admitted that said his thought-processes were probably distorted by the personal tragedies he had suffered in the hands of mass murderers who were Muslims. He shared photos of his relatives who had been murdered but assured me that he had...