Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Adamu, over allegations linking him to funds allegedly stolen by the suspended anti-corruption chief, Ibrahim Magu.
An online platform, PointBlank News, run by Jackson Ude, a former director of strategy and communications under President Goodluck Jonathan administration, on July 8, published that Mr. Magu embezzled over N39 billion and gave Mr. Osinbajo N4 billion for a soft landing.
The report claimed that unnamed sources within the panel investigating the suspended EFCC boss “exposed the vice president’s involvement in the scandal.”
“Specifically, Magu was said to have mentioned a N4 billion that he released to the VP based on directives the very day the president left the country for the United Kingdom on medical treatment,” part of the report read.
It did not give details of which of the president’s numerous medical trips to the United Kingdom it referred to and provided no evidence to back the claim.
In an earlier statement, Mr. Osinbajo’s spokesperson, Laolu Akande, described the claims as “false and baseless fabrications.”
Mr. Osinbajo in a letter to the IGP through his lawyers, Taiwo Osipitan, on Wednesday said the report was untrue and defamatory.
He also copied the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, in the letter.
“On the 8th of July 2020, Mr. Ude wrote and published on his website www.pointblanknews.com materials/stories which are criminally defamatory of our client. We have the instructions of our client that the said publications are injuriously false in every respect,” the lawyer partly said.
Mr Osinbajo also frowned at Mr Ude’s Twitter publication where he again accused the vice president of corruption.
The lawyer asked the IGP to investigate the allegations and if the purveyor was found guilty, the police should initiate criminal proceedings against Mr Ude and his platform to restrain them from future ‘false publications’.
The vice president disclosed then that he was ready to wave his constitutionally guaranteed immunity from prosecution to ensure persons who spread falsehood about him were brought to book.