A human rights lawyer Femi Falana has described blogger VeryDarkMan’s allegations against him as “infantile radicalism”.
The controversial blogger whose real name is Martins Otse had shared a voice note in which crossdresser Idris Okuneye better known as Bobrisky claimed to have given some officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) ₦15m to drop money laundering charges against him.
In the voice note, the crossdresser claimed that Falana sought a presidential pardon for him in exchange for N10 million.
However, the lawyer has labelled the claims in the voice note untrue and insisted on an apology from VeryDarkMan.
“Infantile radicalism. Some of our young people are not prepared to look at the provisions of the law with respect to the law on defamation. They simply go out there to embarrass people,” he said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“In this case, we are not going to file a criminal complaint. We will not be pushed to do that. I’m currently defending a couple of journalists who are standing trial either under the Cyber Crime Act or Criminal Libel,” he said.
“What I am going to do is to embark on civil proceedings with a view to restoring our integrity – my own name and that of my son so that nobody will simply rush to the social media to defame any Nigerian.
“We want to make an example in this case. We have asked for a retraction and an apology rendered to us and that is not too much and if we don’t have a retraction and apology acceptable to us and accepted by us, we are certainly going to initiate civil proceedings in the High Court.”
He also denied knowing Bobrisky and said both of them never spoke.
“Bobrisky never spoke to me, I have never met him, I do not know him from Adam. He was alleged to have spoken to my son Folarin (Falz),” Falana said.
He further narrated, “Yes, my son said this guy was appealing to people for assistance and called my son I think on May 4 this year – please can you give me N3 million to be placed in a special part of the prison, we call it the VIP section.
“My son asked him, are you calling me under the authorization of the superintendent of prisons? He said no – please don’t call me again, I am unable to assist you to bribe the prison authorities, and be very careful since you are already in prison for an offence.
“Please, ‘If you are you are going to call me next time, you either do it through the superintendent or you write a letter endorsed by the prison authorities’ and that was the last. Somebody now start releasing tapes somewhere and went out to lampoon and rather defame me by saying the guy has spoken to me.”
