Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has questioned the Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) decision to invite social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), to speak at its 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt.
Falana made the remarks during a Channels Television interview on Thursday while reacting to VDM’s appearance at the conference, where he spoke on insecurity in Nigeria.
The senior lawyer said NBA conferences should promote intellectual engagement and feature speakers with relevant expertise, particularly when discussing specialised issues such as national security.
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 added, “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 criticised inviting people without relevant experience to discuss specialised subjects.
“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 followed arguments by some lawyers, including Professor Chidi Odinkalu, who defended VDM’s invitation as an opportunity for lawyers to hear from members of the public.
Falana said public engagement was important but maintained that specialised topics should be addressed by people with direct knowledge or experience.
“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 also called on the NBA to restore the intellectual tradition of its conferences, where presentations by prominent legal figures sparked wider public debate.
“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 controversy over VDM’s participation has continued to generate reactions following his comments on insecurity and the conduct of security personnel in Nigeria.
