Martins Vincent Otse, widely known as VeryDarkMan apologised to soldiers, police, customs and immigration officers for comments he made at a recent legal conference linking them to insecurity.
Otse had drawn criticism after telling the Nigerian Bar Association’s 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt that military, police, immigration and customs personnel were “unknown gunmen.”
In a video released on Friday, the activist said he had reflected on his words and concluded they were unfair to officers risking their lives.
“I don’t think I was fair to a lot of people, particularly the speech where I said that the military are the unknown gunmen, the police are the unknown gunmen, you know, the immigration, the customs,” Otse said.
He added: “That speech was not fair, especially to the soldiers that are in the bushes fighting Boko Haram to protect our lands, to protect our lives, and to protect our families. I don’t think it’s fair to say they are also the unknown gunmen, to be very honest, because these people have laid down their lives.”
Otse insisted his aim had been to highlight alleged corruption and sabotage by a minority of personnel rather than to condemn entire forces.
“My speech was entirely to talk about the bad eggs in our security operative, our security forces, is to put attention on the bad eggs, so that the leaders in these security settings will look inward,” he said.
He directly addressed the Chief of Defence Staff and other service chiefs.
“So I will go further to say to the Chief of Defence Staff, Sir, I really want to apologise for that speech, and I don’t want to discourage your boys. Please extend my apologies to your boys, to the ones that are in the bush protecting our lands,” Otse stated.
He also expressed regret to the families of fallen officers.
“To the families of these heroes that might have also felt offended by this speech… I am really, really sorry,” he said.
While maintaining that corrupt elements still existed within the agencies, Otse stressed that many more personnel were dedicated patriots and urged them not to be discouraged.
