Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has criticised the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for inviting social commentator Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), as a panelist at its ongoing annual conference.
Falana said the NBA’s past conferences were not “circus shows,” arguing that discussions on national security should feature individuals with proven expertise and experience in the country’s security architecture.
He made the remarks during an interview with Channels Television on Thursday, August 27.
VDM participated as a panelist in a session titled “Known Gunmen or Unknown Gunmen,” where he spoke about his experiences documenting insecurity and visiting communities affected by killings and attacks.
Reacting to the invitation, Falana said the NBA previously brought individuals who had established themselves in their respective fields to engage lawyers in meaningful intellectual discussions.
“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 none of our conferences was a circus show in the past,” he said.
The legal practitioner maintained that experts invited to speak on national security should have made tangible contributions to Nigeria’s security sector, whether in the public or private sector.
“So, if you are bringing in 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. But when you bring people who have nothing to do with the security of the country, there are problems,” Falana said.
He compared the situation to inviting someone without professional experience in journalism to speak to journalists about press freedom.
“It’s like talking about media freedom, press freedom. You are going to bring practitioners in that field, either in academics or in the newsroom. But to just go and bring somebody from nowhere to come and entertain you, there are problems with that,” he added.
