Falana Criticises NBA Over VeryDarkMan’s Invitation As Conference Panellist.

 

Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has criticised the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) over its decision to invite social media critic Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, as a panellist at its ongoing annual conference.

Falana made the remarks during an appearance on Channels Television on Thursday, August 27, where he argued that discussions on national security at an NBA conference should feature individuals with recognised knowledge and experience in the country’s security architecture.

VeryDarkMan participated in a session titled, “Known Gunmen or Unknown Gunmen”, where he shared his experiences covering insecurity and visiting communities affected by killings and attacks.

However, Falana questioned the suitability of the social media personality as a speaker on national security, saying previous NBA conferences featured individuals with established expertise who could intellectually engage members of the legal profession.

“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,” Falana said.

The human rights lawyer maintained that speakers invited to discuss the country’s security challenges should have made meaningful contributions to the security sector, either from the public or private sector.

According to him, inviting individuals without relevant professional experience to discuss such critical national issues could undermine the quality of the conversation.

Falana compared the situation to inviting someone without experience in journalism or media practice to address professionals on 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.