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 (VDM), to speak at its annual conference.
Falana expressed his position during an interview with Channels Television on Thursday while commenting on the controversy surrounding VDM’s appearance at the NBA’s 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, where he spoke on insecurity.
The senior lawyer argued that speakers invited to address lawyers should possess relevant expertise or experience in the subject under discussion, stressing that NBA conferences should prioritise intellectual engagement rather than entertainment.
“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 said.
He maintained that the choice of speakers should be guided by the subject matter, particularly when conferences address specialised issues such as national security.
According to him, an expert invited to discuss the country’s security should have made a meaningful contribution to the security architecture or possess direct experience of the issue.
Falana warned that inviting individuals without relevant experience to speak on specialised matters could undermine the purpose of professional conferences.
His comments followed a reference to arguments by some lawyers, including Professor Chidi Odinkalu, who defended VDM’s invitation as an opportunity for the legal profession to hear directly from members of the public who interact with the justice system.
Falana acknowledged the value of public engagement but said such a justification did not necessarily apply to a speaker invited to address a specialised subject without relevant expertise.
“With profound respect to my very good friend Chidi Odinkalu, he was talking in the general sense. We’re talking of this particular case,” he said.
He added that if the subject were justice delivery, hearing from members of the public would be appropriate. However, discussions on national security, he argued, should involve security practitioners, experts or victims with direct experience of issues such as abduction.
Falana urged the NBA to revive what he described as the intellectual tradition of its conferences, recalling presentations by prominent legal figures that continued to generate public debate long after the events.
He cited the late Dr Akinola Aguda’s 1985 presentation and the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa’s 1987 conference address as examples of contributions that prompted editorials, professional debates and wider public discussions.
“I think lawyers, as I said, we should go back to that era,” he said.
Falana also called on the NBA to carefully assess the records of political leaders invited to speak on democracy and the rule of law.
He argued that former heads of state and other political figures should be able to demonstrate through their records that they respected court orders, human rights and press freedom while in office.
The controversy over VDM’s appearance at the NBA conference has continued to generate reactions, particularly following his allegations concerning the conduct of security personnel in relation to kidnapping and insecurity in Nigeria.
