Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has criticised the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for inviting social media personality Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), to serve as a panelist at its ongoing annual conference in Port Harcourt.
Otse participated in a panel session on Tuesday titled “Known Gunmen or Unknown Gunmen,” where he spoke about his experiences reporting on insecurity and visiting communities affected by killings and attacks.
His appearance at the 66th Annual General Conference of the NBA in Rivers State has sparked mixed reactions, with some lawyers and commentators questioning the decision while others defended his participation.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Falana said discussions on national security would have been better handled by someone with professional experience in the country’s security architecture.
“In those days, the NBA brought individuals who had paid their dues and were coming to engage lawyers intellectually. We wanted to learn from them, and none of our conferences was a circus show in the past,” Falana said.
He argued that speakers invited to discuss national security should have demonstrable experience and a track record of contributing to the country’s security system.
“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,” he said.
“But when you bring people who have nothing to do with the security of the country, there are problems.”
Falana likened the invitation to asking someone without relevant professional experience to address journalists on issues of 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 said.
During the panel discussion, Otse alleged that some police officers stationed at checkpoints along major highways identify wealthy travellers and pass information about their identities and movements to kidnappers, thereby facilitating ransom kidnappings.
The Nigeria Police Force subsequently dismissed the allegation as unsubstantiated and damaging to the institution.
The police challenged Otse to provide evidence supporting his claim, stating that any credible information supplied would be taken seriously and investigated.
