Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has criticised the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for inviting social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, to speak at its annual conference.
Falana made his position known during an interview with Channels Television on Thursday while discussing the controversy surrounding VDM’s appearance at the NBA’s 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, where he addressed the issue of insecurity.
The senior lawyer argued that speakers invited to address lawyers should have the necessary expertise or practical experience in the subjects they are expected to discuss. He maintained that NBA conferences should prioritise intellectual engagement rather than entertainment.
He said: “In those days, the NBA brought individuals who had paid their dues, who were coming to engage lawyers intellectually. We wanted to learn from them, and so the NBA was not… none of our conferences was a side show in the past.”
Falana stressed that specialised topics, particularly national security, require speakers with direct knowledge or experience in the relevant field.
“So, if you are bringing an expert to discuss the security of the country, either from the private or public sector, such an individual must have contributed to the security architecture of the country,” he said.
According to him, inviting individuals without relevant backgrounds to speak on specialised matters could undermine the purpose of professional conferences.
“But when you bring people who have nothing to do with the security of the country, there are problems. It’s like talking about media freedom, press freedom—you are going to bring practitioners in that field, whether in the academics or in the newsroom. But to just go and bring somebody from nowhere to come and entertain you, there are problems with that,” Falana said.
His comments came after the presenter cited the views of some lawyers, including Professor Chidi Odinkalu, who defended VDM’s invitation as a way for the legal profession to hear directly from members of the public who engage with the justice system.
Falana responded that while Odinkalu’s argument was valid in a broader context, it did not necessarily support inviting someone without relevant expertise to speak on a specialised subject.
“With profound respect to my very good friend Chidi Odinkalu, he was talking in the general sense. We’re talking of this particular case,” Falana said.
The human rights lawyer acknowledged the value of engaging members of the public but maintained that discussions centred on national security should involve people with direct knowledge or experience of the issue.
“If we are talking about justice delivery in the country, we now want to hear from members of the public, that will have been okay. But if you are talking about the security of the country, it does require that you bring people who are involved in maintaining the security of the country, or who are victims of abductions and the rest of them,” he said.
Falana Calls for Return to NBA’s Intellectual Tradition
Falana also urged the NBA to revive what he described as the intellectual tradition that previously characterised its conferences.
He recalled presentations by prominent legal figures whose contributions continued to generate public debate long after the conferences ended.
“In those days—in those days, the submissions of some of our lecturers, like the late Dr. Akinola Aguda when he addressed us in 1985, or the late Justice Oputa when he addressed our conference in 1987—for several days and weeks, their submissions became matters of public discourse,” he said.
“Editorial comments were written on them, lawyers debated them even after the conference, and we learned from them. And I think lawyers, as I said, we should go back to that era.”
The senior lawyer further argued that the NBA should scrutinise the records of political leaders invited to speak on issues such as democracy and the rule of law.
He said: “So if you’re going to have a former head of state to address lawyers to talk about democracy or rule of law, then you must bring someone who can say, ‘When I was in power, there was not a single court order that I disobeyed, I didn’t lock up people illegally, I didn’t harass the media,’ and so on and so forth.”
The controversy surrounding VDM’s participation at the NBA conference has continued to attract public attention, particularly following his comments and allegations concerning security personnel and the handling of kidnapping and insecurity in Nigeria.