Johannesburg - Malusi Gigaba, who resigned as home affairs minister, deleted his Twitter account soon after the Presidency announced on Tuesday afternoon that the embattled 47-year-old politician had submitted a letter of resignation to President Cyril Ramaphosa which he accepted.
Gigaba, a member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), said in his letter of resignation that he was stepping aside for the sake of "our country and the movement", and also to relieve Ramaphosa from "undue" pressure and allow him to focus on doing his job.
Gigaba has been under immense pressure since a video of him performing a sexual act on himself was leaked on social media, allegedly by people who tried to extort R10 million from him when he was finance minister last year.
The ANC MP was also facing mounting pressure from Parliament to explain how he had granted permission to the Oppenheimer's Fireblade Aviation to run a private terminal at OR Tambo International Airport.
This is after the Constitutional Court upheld the North Gauteng High Court's ruling that Gigaba had lied under oath after the tried to challenge the Public Protector's report on the Fireblade contract.
On Twitter, hashtag Malusi Gigaba was trending number one after news broke that Gigaba had resigned. Social media users started searching for his account and noticed that it did not exist anymore, meaning that he had deleted it.
Gigaba last week apologised on Twitter after mocking fellow Member of Parliament, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, by making a gesture with his pinkie finger to suggest that Ndlozi had a smaller manhood during a heated question and answer session when Ndlozi suggested that President Cyril Ramaphosa buys feature phones with no cameras for his executive.
The former minister also tried to sue veteran radio and TV personality, Redi Thlabi, a couple of months ago after she accused him on Twitter of being one of the architects of State capture by allowing the Gupta family to manipulate him into making decisions favourable to them when he was minister of public enterprises.
Redi also said Gigaba had negatively affected the tourism industry with his disastrous visa regime when he started out as minister of home affairs.