Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has criticised the Nigerian Bar Association for inviting social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), to speak at its annual conference.
Falana said the NBA should invite speakers with relevant expertise or experience, particularly when conferences address specialised issues such as national security.
He made the remarks in an interview with Channels Television on Thursday following controversy over VeryDarkMan’s appearance at the NBA’s 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt.
VeryDarkMan spoke about insecurity at the conference and alleged that some police officers at checkpoints share information about wealthy travellers with kidnappers and bandits.
The Nigeria Police Force has since challenged him to provide evidence to support the allegations.
Falana said the NBA’s conferences should prioritise intellectual engagement and professional expertise 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,” he said.
He argued that speakers discussing national security should have direct knowledge or experience of the country’s security architecture.
“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,” Falana said.
He said inviting people without relevant experience to speak on specialised subjects could undermine the purpose of the conference.
Falana’s comments followed arguments by some lawyers, including Professor Chidi Odinkalu, who defended the invitation as an opportunity for the legal profession to hear directly from members of the public who interact with the justice system.
Falana said lawyers should engage members of the public but maintained that the choice of speaker should reflect the subject under discussion.
“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 said the NBA could invite members of the public to discuss justice delivery, but argued that discussions on national security should include people with direct experience of security operations or victims of abductions.
Falana also 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 after the events.
He cited the late Dr Akinola Aguda and former Supreme Court Justice Chukwudifu Oputa as examples of speakers whose conference presentations, he said, prompted sustained debate among lawyers and the wider public.
Falana also questioned the criteria for inviting political leaders to speak to lawyers about democracy and the rule of law.
He argued that former political leaders should be prepared to account for their records in office, including their treatment of court orders, citizens and the media.
The debate over VeryDarkMan’s appearance at the NBA conference has continued, particularly following his allegations about the conduct of security personnel and the wider response to kidnapping and insecurity in Nigeria.
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