Editor
The Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has declared his readiness to waive his constitutional immunity to “enable the most robust adjudication” of several corruption allegations and insinuations against his person and office which he described as baseless and false.
Prof. Osinbajo made this declaration in a tweet he personally authored this afternoon.
Below is the full text of his tweet:
“In the past few days, a spate of reckless and malicious falsehoods have been peddled in the media against me by a group of malicious individuals.
“The defamatory and misleading assertions invented by this clique had mostly been making the social media rounds anonymously.
“I have today instructed the commencement of legal action against two individuals, one Timi Frank and another Katch Ononuju, who have put their names to these odious falsehoods.
“I will waive my constitutional immunity to enable the most robust adjudication of these claims of libel and malicious falsehood.”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had demanded a system-wide investigation into the alleged siphoning of N90 billion from the coffers of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in which top members of the Buhari Presidency and All Progressives Congress (APC) have been mentioned.
In a statement signed on Tuesday by Its Spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP demanded that the Buhari Presidency must not cover this humongous corruption involving highly placed officers in this administration, as it had done in the past.
“The party laments that in the face of excruciating hardship being endured by citizens, a government, which came into office on the mantra of change and zero tolerance for corruption, has become enmeshed in atrocious acts of corruption.
“The PDP holds that it is pathetic and speaks volumes of the character of this administration that a top member of the cabinet is being fingered in this reprehensible siphoning of monies collected as taxes from millions of already impoverished Nigerians.
“Our party notes that this shocking allegation directly borders on gross misconduct and breach of public trust.
“The party therefore rejects the flimsy denials and threats being pushed through the FIRS as a belated attempt at cover-up by persons close to the Presidency.
“It is therefore held that the delay by the Buhari Presidency in applying established statutory processes and procedures of ordering an investigation into the issue only goes to confirm that the Buhari administration is a citadel of corruption.
“This is more so as reports are already in the public domain of how the money stolen from FIRS, was allegedly diverted to private purses and for other extraneous purposes including the 2019 extravagant campaigns of the APC.
“Nigerians expect that all our national resources should always be used to ensure the welfare of the citizenry and must be accounted for at all times,” the party further stated.
