Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has criticised the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for inviting social ciritc, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), as a panelist at its ongoing annual conference, saying past NBA conferences were not “circus shows.” NigerianBeach Volleyball
Falana made the remarks while speaking on Channels Television on Thursday, August 27.
VDM spoke as a panelist on one of the session’s titled “Known Gunmen or Unknown Gunmen”, where he discussed his experiences covering insecurity and visiting communities affected by killings and attacks.
Falana said discussions on national security at an NBA conference should involve individuals with demonstrable experience in the country’s security architecture.
“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 argued that the association should invite experts who had made meaningful contributions to the country’s security sector when organising sessions on national security.
“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.”he said
Falana likened the invitation to bringing someone without professional experience 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 said.