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Human rights lawyer Femi Falana has condemned the Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) move to invite social media personality Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), as a panellist at its ongoing annual conference in Port Harcourt.
Naija News reports that VDM had made an appearance in a panel session on Tuesday titled “Known Gunmen or Unknown Gunmen”, where he spoke about his experiences covering insecurity and visiting communities affected by killings and attacks.
Sharing his thoughts on the development during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Falana stated that the Association should have invited someone with professional experience.
“In those days, the NBA brought Individuals who had paid their dues, who had 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, you know,” Falana said.
He argued that national security discussions should feature people with demonstrable experience in the field.
“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 compared the invitation to bringing an individual without relevant professional experience to address media practitioners 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. And I think that was the problem associated with that particular lecturer, I mean an individual,” he said.
During the panel session, Otse alleged that some police officers manning checkpoints along major highways identify wealthy travellers and relay information about their identities and movements to kidnappers, thereby facilitating abductions for ransom.
Falana is a Loudmouth that sometimes shoot without adequate reasoning. The fact that he was made SAN doesn’t mean he’s always reasonable and correct