Falana: I’ve never met or spoken to Bobrisky — presidential pardon allegation untrue

Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, says he has never met or spoken with Idris Okuneye, a popular crossdresser known as Bobrisky.

Speaking in an interview with Channels Television on Thursday, Falana said Bobrisky called his son — Falz — to seek financial assistance for a VIP section in prison.

Recently, VeryDarkMan, the controversial activist, shared a purported audio conversation wherein Bobrisky claimed that Falana and Falz contacted her while she was serving a six-month sentence for naira abuse.

In the recording, Bobrisky alleged that she spoke with Falz in prison and that the rapper and his dad “tried to get me a presidential pardon in exchange for N10,000,000″.

The activist, whose real name is Martins Vincent Otse, said he has lost the respect he had for Falana over his alleged involvement in the matter.

Bobrisky has since denied the recording and threatened to sue VeryDarkMan for defamation.

Falana and Falz have threatened to institute legal action against the activist if he refuses to retract his comments and apologise.

Reacting to questions during his appearance on the programme, Falana described the action VeryDarkMan took as “infantile radicalism”.

“My son said this guy (Bobrisky) was appealing to people for assistance and called my son on May 4 or thereabout this year and said can you give me N3 million to be placed in a special part of the prison — we call it VIP section,” Falana said.

“And my son said, ‘are you calling me under the authorisation of the superintendent of prisons?’ He said no. Then Falz said ‘don’t call me again. I’m unable to assist you to bribe the prison authorities. And be very careful, since you are already in jail for an offence. Please, if 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. And somebody said he listened to a tape somewhere and went out to lampoon and defame me. Of course we are going to examine the call logs.

“My son has never negotiated fees on behalf of anybody.”

‘INFANTILE RADICALISM’

The senior lawyer said he has assisted 280 convicted persons to secure pardon without collecting a dime from them.

Falana narrated how he facilitated pardon for convicted soldiers in Nigeria and 200 Nigerians in Libya found guilty of drug-related offences.

The human rights lawyers said he will pursue civil procedure on the defamatory statement against him to deter other social media users.

“I think it is a question of infantile radicalism. Some of our young people are not prepared to look at the provisions of the law with respect to the law of defamation,” Falana said.

“They just simply go out there to embarrass people. I can say this without fear of contradiction: I have assisted 280 convicted people home and abroad to get pardon. On no occasion did our law firm demand for or receive a dime or kobo from anybody granted pardon.

“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 (referring to Falz).

“I have resisted the temptation to file a criminal complaint because I’m leading a team of lawyers in West Africa campaigning for decriminalisation of freedom of expression.

“We have succeeded in getting Liberia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone to decriminalise freedom of expression. We are still appealing to other countries in the region but that is not license for defaming and blackmailing people.

“We are not going to file a criminal complaint. We won’t be pushed to do that.

“What we are going to do is to embark on civil proceedings with a view of 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.”