By Akinwale Kasali
Hours after Lagos State House of Assembly Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, slammed a whopping N1 Billion Libel Suit on Omoyele Sowore’s Sahara Reporters, the House of Representatives is taking a legal action against another Online Medium, Daily Post, for alleging that the lawmakers took a $10 Million bribe from American Billionaire, Bill Gates.
The lawmakers reached this resolution during Plenary yesterday, Tuesday 5th May, 2020 to take legal action against Daily Post for what it believes is a weighty allegation of bribery of $10million, allegedly, given the House to pass the Infectious Disease Control Bill.
The Deputy Speaker of the House, Ahmed Wase, who had moved the motion of Personal Explanation at plenary said an online medium organisation had published a report alleging that the House collected $10million from Bill Gates to pass the contentious Infectious Disease Control Bill. He described the allegation as false, insulting and derogatory to the image of the House of Representatives and its Honourable members.
Wase insisted, and put it on record, that he never collected any money from anyone and is 100 percent aware that no member had collected money from anyone for that purpose.
Ndudi Elumelu, the Minority Leader told his colleagues that he read on an online news platform, Daily Post, that Bill Gates, an American philanthropist and billionaire, gave the Green Chamber $10million to pass the bill.
“By the time the Gates Foundation came to the House, we were all in attendance. I want to submit that we did not receive anything and I stand by it,” he said.
Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila said the action of the online media had given credence to the need to regulate social media and online publications.
He mandated the Clerk of the House, Patrick Giwa, to liaise with the Majority Leader of the House and Legal Adviser to the National Assembly to begin legal action against Daily Post, and do the needful in earnest.
The House also set up an investigative panel headed by Henry Nwawuba to fish out those responsible for the damaging report, mandating the panel to report back to the House in 10 days.
