A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Femi Falana, has threatened to file a civil case against social media activist, VeryDarkMan.
He said being an advocate of freedom of expression, he is willing to let go criminal charges against the activist.
He, however, said it is not too much to have requested a retraction and a written apology from VeryDarkMan.
Recall that VDM had accused Falana and Falz, his son of making a fraudulent arrangement for popular Cross dresser Bobrisky when he was sentenced over abuse of the Naira.
VDM made the allegation while analyzing an audio recording he exclusively obtained. The recording revealed a conversation between Bobrisky and an unknown man who gave the cross dresser a loan during his jail term.
But denying the allegation, Falana said he never had a conversation nor met Bobrisky in his life.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, Falana said the crossdresser only spoke to his son, Folarin Falana, aka Falz.
Falana 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 going to call me next time, you either go through the superintendent or you write a letter endorsed by the prison authorities and that was the last.
“Somebody now started releasing tapes somewhere and went out to lampoon and rather defame me by saying the guy has spoken to me.
“ I have resisted the temptation to file a criminal complaint because I’m leading a team of lawyers in West Africa campaigning for decriminalization of freedom of expression. We have succeeded.
“This campaign is being coordinated by the media foundation for West Africa of which I’m member of the board. We have succeeded in getting Liberia, Ghana and Seirelone to decriminalize freedom of speech expression. We are still appealing to other countries in the region to ensure that we respect freedom of expression.
“But that is not a license for defaming people, for blackmailing people. And what we are saying; if you are defamed by anybody, please go out there and sue for libel. In this case we are going to embark on civil proceeding 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 render to us and that is not too much. And if we don’t have a retraction, an apology acceptable to us, acceptable by us, we are certainly going to initiate a civil proceeding.