Social critic Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, has apologised to soldiers, police officers, customs and immigration personnel over comments he made at the recently held Nigerian Bar Association’s 66th Annual General Conference.
VeryDarkMan issued the apology in a video shared on Friday, September 4, after reflecting on his speech during a discussion on insecurity, where he referred to personnel from the military, police, immigration and customs services as “unknown gunmen.”
He said he realised that the remark was unfair to security personnel who risk their lives to protect Nigerians, particularly soldiers fighting Boko Haram and other security threats.
According to him, his criticism was aimed at alleged corruption, sabotage and information leaks involving some individuals within the security agencies, rather than security personnel as a whole.
However, he acknowledged that his choice of words amounted to a generalisation that could diminish the sacrifices of officers who had lost their lives in the line of duty.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
VeryDarkMan clarified that his intention was not to discourage security personnel but to draw attention to what he described as “bad eggs” within the security forces.
He urged the leadership of the various security agencies to look inward and address issues such as alleged information leaks and internal sabotage.
“My speech was not to discourage you. My speech was entirely to talk about the bad eggs in our security forces, to put attention on the bad eggs, so that the leaders in these security settings will look inward and see that sometimes information is being leaked and their own people are sabotaging them,” he added.
