Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has asked Google Nigeria to Remove and or Suspend a video published by Roots TV Nigeria on the search engine’s Video Streaming Site YouTube, on allegations of illegally stacking monies for agencies to finance his alleged 2023 presidential ambition.
He made the request through his solicitors, Femi Atoyebi & Co, in a written petition.
The vice president’s solicitors said
“It is our understanding that you have provided a platform through which an account holder named RootsTV Nigeria, an online news platform that is available through this link… is able to continuously broadcast defamatory contents.
“In the broadcast published on the accounts of RootsTV Nigeria on September 20, 2019, the following incorrect statements and untruths were made:
“a. Our Client was stacking up public funds from agencies directly under his supervision, with a strong insinuation that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was the principal organ by which the alleged fraud was perpetrated.
“b. Our Client was unable to explain the alleged imbalance and discrepancies on the account of the FIRS on the interrogation of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Abba Kyari.
“c. Our Client was unable to explain the alleged failed disbursement to all beneficiaries under the Social Investment Programme of the Federal Government in Adamawa State,”.
The solicitors said the publication is a sorry attempt to discredit the Vice President Oshinbajo and his Office; and expose our client to contempt and ridicule in the estimation of right-thinking members of the society”.
They solicitors to the President said there was never a time that Osinbajo had been linked with an act of corruption in his decades of private and public services.
“Our Client, therefore, demands that you immediately remove and/or suspend the publication/broadcast of the defamatory publication on the account of RootsTV Nigeria on the platform of YouTube,”.
Vice President Osinbajo earlier said he will suspend immunity vested in his position as Vice President to alloy a robust adjudication process on falsehood on his Person and Office, and has ordered legal steps on Mr. Timi Frank and Mr. Katch Ononuju two persons whom he said put their name to baseless allegations.
In the meantime, Publisher The Vanguard Newspaper has retracted a publication on its website titled, “N90bn FIRS Election Fund: Osinbajo’s problem, not 2023 politics”, which it said lacked “factual substance”.
In a statement published on the newspaper’s website on Wednesday, it apologised to Vice President Yemi Osibanjo on whom the story touched directly, adding that it holds him “in the highest esteem”.
Vanguard also apologised to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) “for any inconvenience or embarrassment the publication has occasioned them”.
(C) Control TV 2019.
