Falana refutes Bobrisky bribery claims, demands apology from VeryDarkMan

Abdullateef Fowewe

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana SAN, has denied allegations by controversial social media activist, Martins Otse, well known as VeryDarkMan.

The controversy began after VeryDarkMan shared a voice note in which Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky, allegedly claimed to have paid N15 million to officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to drop money laundering charges.

Bobrisky also allegedly claimed that Falana sought a presidential pardon for him in exchange for N10 million.

Falana while speaking on Channels TV refuted these accusations, naming them baseless and demanding an apology from VeryDarkMan.

He said, “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. 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.

“Of course we are going to examine the call logs and my son has also said, this was a guy who originated a call to me, my son has never, never negotiated fees on behalf of anybody on the contrary, my three children normally refer people who need assistance to me, in fact, my wife was asking recently, why are you always sending people who are not able to pay our fees, next time we are going to be charging you. This is the position, that I’m going to do, I have resisted the temptation to file a criminal complaint because I’m leading a team of lawyers in West Africa campaigning for the decriminalisation of freedom of expression, we have succeeded, and this campaign is being coordinated by the media foundation for West Africa of which I’m a member of the board.

“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. What we are going to do is 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 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.”