Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Adamu, over allegations linking him to funds allegedly stolen by the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu.
A former director of strategy and communications under President Goodluck Jonathan administration, Jackson Ude, on Wednesday, alleged that Mr Magu embezzled over N39 billion and gave Mr Osinbajo N4 billion for 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.”
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 tweet was said to have been shared on several social media platforms to make the vice president appear like a “dishonest and disloyal public officer and consequently unfit for the position of the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which he is occupying,” the official said.
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’.
Before now, there have been different unproven reports against Mr Osinbajo in the media.
