Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and human rights lawyer, has distanced himself from controversial crossdresser Idris Okuneye, better known as Bobrisky.
This comes after a viral audio posted by social commentator Martins Otse, known as VeryDarkMan, in which Bobrisky claimed to have bribed officials from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with N15 million to drop money laundering charges against him.
In the audio, Bobrisky also alleged that his “godfather” and Haliru Nababa, the Controller-General of the Nigerian Correctional Service, arranged for him to serve a six-month sentence in a private apartment instead of prison.
The crossdresser also alleged that singer Falz contacted him, stating that his father, Femi Falana, could assist him in obtaining a presidential pardon for N10 million, which would help clear his criminal record.
Both Femi Falana and his son, Falz, through their lawyers, requested an immediate retraction of the publication along with an apology from VeryDarkMan to be posted on all his platforms within 24 hours.
In response, VeryDarkMan contended that he did not defame the Falanas but merely shared the audio recording to prompt relevant agencies to investigate the statements allegedly made by Bobrisky
However, the blogger later apologized to Falana for his derogatory comments during an appearance before the House of Representatives Joint Committee on Financial Crimes and Reformatory Institutions.
During an interview on Channels Television’s *Politics Today*, Falana denied any connection with Bobrisky and stated he had never met or spoken to him.
He explained that he has helped 280 convicted individuals, both in Nigeria and abroad, secure pardons without ever asking for money from those he represented.
The lawyer 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 (Falz).
“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 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.”
Femi Falana revealed that his family plans to take civil action against VeryDarkMan to restore their names after the defamatory remarks made against them.
He said, “In this case, we are not going to file a criminal complain. What we are going to do is to embark on a 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, an apology rendered to us, accepted by us, we are certainly going initiate civil proceedings in the court”.
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KanyiDaily recalls that VeryDarkMan recently slammed Falz’s sister, Folakemi Falana after she referred to him as “notorious.”