Social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, has apologised to soldiers, police officers, customs and immigration personnel over his controversial remarks at the Nigerian Bar Association’s 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Otse, in a video shared on Friday, said he had reflected on his speech and realised that his comments were unfair to security personnel genuinely risking their lives to protect Nigerians.
The activist had described the military, police, immigration and customs personnel as “unknown gunmen” while speaking about insecurity at the conference.
Explaining his remarks, Otse said he was referring to alleged corruption, information leaks and sabotage by some personnel within the security agencies, but admitted that his comments appeared to generalise the issue.
“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,” he said.
He specifically apologised to soldiers fighting Boko Haram and other threats in the country’s bushes, saying their sacrifices should not be undermined.
“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,” Otse said.
He also apologised to the Chief of Defence Staff and the leadership of the police, customs and immigration services, as well as families of fallen security personnel.
Otse maintained that his intention was to expose “bad eggs” within the security agencies rather than discourage or condemn the entire security 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.
The activist, however, maintained that corruption exists among some senior and junior security personnel, while stressing that there are also many dedicated officers serving the country.
“A lot of bad eggs, a lot of them are there. A lot of corrupt generals, a lot of high-ranking police officers are corrupt, a lot of junior officers are corrupt,” he said, adding that “there’s still a lot of more good people” within the security agencies.