VICE President Yemi Osinbajo has denied receiving funds from Ibrahim Magu, the embattled acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, demanding that a criminal defamation suit be launched to investigate the allegation.

An online newspaper, PointBlank had reported that Magu allegedly embezzled over N39 billion and gave the Vice President  N4 billion to give him soft landing.

But the Vice President in a petition addressed to Muhammed Adamu, the Inspector General of Police, Osinbajo through his lawyer, Taiwo Osipitan described the report as false and defamatory.

The report claimed that private sources within the panel investigating the suspended EFCC chairman “exposed the vice president’s involvement in the scandal.”

Osinbajo’s lawyer in the petition, said tweets and publications by Jackson Ude, publisher of the Pointblank were made on a public platform on a Twitter account with over 46, 000 followers.

He said, some of the social media followers of Ude have retweeted same hundreds of times, arguing that the false allegations have elicited responses targeted at the Vice President ranging from shock, outrage to comments that cast aspersion on his integrity.

“Our instruction is that the above statements published by Mr. Ude are false in every material respect and same are designed to injure the reputation of our client,” Osipitan said.

He further stated that the vicious and malicious publications were meant to achieve one objective only, which according to him was to present the Vice President as a dishonest and disloyal public officer and consequently unfit for his current position.

Osipitan maintained that unless an action for criminal defamation is commenced against the Jackson Ude, he will continue to use his social media platform to publish materials that are false and criminally defamatory of Osinbajo’s reputation.

He called on the Inspector General of Police to investigate the allegations against the Vice President, noting that if they were found to be false, the police should initiate criminal proceedings pursuant to the provisions of Sections 391 – 395 of the Penal Code Act for Criminal Defamation against the said Jackson Ude.