‘We Aren’t Doing Side Shows’ – Falana Faults NBA Over VDM Invitation

Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has criticised the Nigerian Bar Association over its decision to invite social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, to participate in its 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Falana said the NBA should be more careful about the people it selects to speak at its conferences, particularly when the subject under discussion involves specialised matters such as national security.

His comments come amid growing controversy over VeryDarkMan’s appearance at the conference, where he participated in a panel session on insecurity and spoke about his experiences covering violent incidents across the country.

Speaking during an interview with Channels Television on Thursday, Falana maintained that the NBA’s annual conferences should provide an avenue for serious intellectual engagement and professional discussions.

He recalled that the association previously invited people with proven experience and knowledge in their respective fields to address lawyers.

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’s objection was not simply about VeryDarkMan’s status as a social media personality. He focused on the relevance of the speaker to the subject assigned to him.

According to the senior lawyer, someone invited to speak on national security should have a clear connection to the country’s security architecture or direct experience of the issue.

He said, “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.”

Falana argued that the choice of speakers becomes particularly important when lawyers are gathered for their major annual professional conference.

He added that inviting people without the required background to discuss specialised subjects could defeat the purpose of the event.

“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..

Some lawyers questioned the decision to place the social commentator on a panel at one of the NBA’s biggest gatherings.

Others defended the move on the grounds that he could provide the perspective of an ordinary citizen and someone who has documented insecurity in different parts of Nigeria.

VeryDarkMan himself addressed the issue during the conference.

He said he was not invited to teach lawyers about the law but to share experiences from his activities and encounters with insecurity.

“There has been a lot of debate about why I was invited to this NBA conference. I’m not here to teach you people law; I’m here to share experience,” he said.

He also argued that the discussion was about insecurity rather than legal technicalities.

“This is not a topic of ‘may I, my lord’ because your lords are being kidnapped,” he stated.

The session exposed the different approaches to discussing insecurity in Nigeria.

VeryDarkMan spoke about incidents he claimed to have witnessed while visiting communities affected by violence and killings.

Falana was also asked about the position of Professor Chidi Odinkalu, who had defended the broader idea of allowing people outside the traditional legal establishment to engage with lawyers.

Odinkalu had argued that the legal profession should pay attention to the experiences of members of the public who interact with the justice system.

Falana, however, said he understood Odinkalu’s argument but believed the particular issue under discussion was different.

“With profound respect to my very good friend Chidi Odinkalu, he was talking in the general sense. We’re talking of this particular case,” Falana said.

He stressed that there was nothing wrong with the NBA listening to members of the public.

His concern, he explained, was that the relevance of a speaker should correspond with the topic being discussed.

“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 looked back at previous NBA conferences, saying the events once produced presentations that continued to generate discussions long after the conferences ended.

He cited the late legal scholar, Dr Akinola Aguda, and former Supreme Court Justice Chukwudifu Oputa as examples of speakers whose contributions created wider debates within the country.

“In those days—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 senior lawyer further extended his argument to political figures who are invited to address lawyers on democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law.

He said such individuals should also have records that can withstand scrutiny.

Falana said, “So if you’re going to have a former head of state to address lawyers to talk about democracy or rule of law, then you must bring someone who can say, ‘When I was in power, there was not a single court order that I disobeyed, I didn’t lock up people illegally, I didn’t harass the media,’ and so on and so forth.”

The controversy has come as the NBA holds its 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt from August 21 to August 28, 2026, under the theme, “Beyond Limits: Redefining the Practice of Law in Nigeria.”

The conference has brought together lawyers, judges, policymakers and other stakeholders to discuss issues concerning the legal profession and national development.