There are moments when an institution must pause—not necessarily because it has acted unlawfully, but because a particular decision raises deeper questions about judgment, standards and institutional identity.
The decision to invite Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, as a panellist at the Nigerian Bar Association’s Annual General Conference has generated considerable debate within and outside the legal profession. And the question I ask is a simple one: Is the NBA in short supply of resource persons?
I ask this question not as an attack on VeryDarkMan, but because it raises a fundamental question about the standards, judgment and intellectual character expected of an institution as important as the Nigerian Bar Association. Let me make certain things clear from the outset. This is not an argument that only lawyers should speak at NBA conferences. It is not an argument that people without formal legal training have nothing useful to contribute to discussions involving lawyers. Neither is it an argument that unconventional voices should be excluded from serious national conversations.
People outside formal institutions can bring perspectives that professionals may not possess. Journalists, activists, entrepreneurs, technology experts and ordinary citizens can all make valuable contributions to public discourse. The legal profession must not become an echo chamber where lawyers speak only to lawyers. But that is not the issue here. The real issue is whether popularity, social-media influence and the ability to attract public attention should, by themselves, be sufficient considerations for selecting resource persons at the premier gathering of Nigerian lawyers. It is important to make a constitutional distinction. The Nigerian Bar Association is not the Judiciary, nor is it an independent arm of government in the constitutional sense. The Judiciary occupies a distinct position within Nigeria’s constitutional structure, and judicial independence remains fundamental to the proper administration of justice.
The NBA is a professional association. But that does not diminish its importance.
The NBA occupies a unique place in Nigeria’s intellectual and professional life. Its members appear before the courts, advise governments and corporations, defend citizens, challenge abuses of power and contribute to the development of law and public policy. Its Annual General Conference is the premier gathering of the Nigerian legal profession, bringing together lawyers, judges, academics, policymakers and other professionals. What happens on that platform, therefore, matters. The people invited to speak matter. The ideas presented matter. And the standards by which speakers are selected matter. We live in an age where public visibility is increasingly mistaken for authority. A person with millions of followers is assumed to be important. A person who constantly trends is assumed to be influential. A person who commands public attention is sometimes treated as though attention itself were evidence of expertise.
But it is not. Popularity answers one question: How many people are listening to you? Expertise answers another: Why should people listen to you on this particular subject? A social-media personality may reach millions of people and still not be a specialist in a particular field. A celebrity may command a larger audience than a professor and still not possess the professor’s depth of knowledge. A commentator may generate more public engagement than a researcher who has spent decades studying the same subject. That does not make the commentator more knowledgeable. It simply means the commentator is more visible. The legal profession, perhaps more than most professions, should understand the importance of distinctions—between allegation and proof, assertion and evidence, opinion and fact, influence and authority. The distinction between popularity and expertise should not be lost simply because we now live in the age of social media. This is not to say that VeryDarkMan has nothing to offer. That would be unfair. VeryDarkMan has developed a powerful public voice and has used his platform to engage issues affecting ordinary Nigerians. His personal experiences and perspective may be relevant to certain discussions, particularly those involving public institutions, social activism and insecurity.
Lived experience can be valuable. But there is a difference between inviting someone to offer a citizen’s perspective and selecting that person as a resource person at a major intellectual gathering. There is a difference between listening to experience and equating experience with expertise. And there is a difference between engaging an unconventional voice and allowing popularity to become the principal basis for professional recognition. These distinctions matter. This is where the decision becomes difficult to understand. Nigeria is blessed with an extraordinary number of brilliant minds. The Nigerian Bar is certainly not lacking in intellectual resources. We have Senior Advocates with decades of courtroom experience. We have constitutional lawyers who have spent their professional lives studying the Nigerian State. We have professors of law whose scholarship has contributed to the development of jurisprudence.
We have criminal lawyers who understand the weaknesses of our criminal justice system. We have specialists in national security, terrorism and intelligence. We have human-rights lawyers, retired judges, security professionals, researchers, investigative journalists and civil-society organisations with direct experience of the issues confronting Nigeria. The pool of knowledgeable Nigerians capable of contributing to discussions about insecurity, justice, governance and the rule of law is enormous. So one must ask: Was there truly a shortage of resource persons? I sincerely doubt it. The NBA must evolve. It must understand technology, engage social media and listen to younger Nigerians. It must recognise that the world is changing and that the legal profession cannot remain disconnected from society.
But being contemporary does not mean being celebrity-driven. And being innovative does not mean abandoning intellectual standards.
If the NBA wishes to examine social-media activism, it can invite digital-rights experts, technology lawyers, academics, journalists, researchers and activists. If it wishes to understand insecurity from the perspective of ordinary Nigerians, it can invite citizens, victims, community leaders and people with direct experience.
If a social-media activist has a valuable perspective, that perspective can be included within an intellectually rigorous framework.
That is genuine innovation. Nigeria is increasingly developing a culture in which social-media visibility is converted into institutional authority. A person becomes famous online. The person becomes a commentator, then a panellist, and gradually begins to acquire the appearance of authority.
This is dangerous. A society that treats popularity as expertise will eventually undervalue genuine expertise. Why should a scholar spend decades researching a subject if public institutions can accord greater attention to someone merely because that person has a larger social-media following?
Why should a professional devote years to acquiring specialised knowledge if the principal qualification for a major platform becomes the ability to trend? These are uncomfortable questions, but they are necessary ones. The NBA must be open to new ideas and new voices. It should be innovative, contemporary and connected to the realities of Nigerian society. But there is one limit that should never be crossed: the limit beyond which relevance becomes a surrender of professional standards.
Professional institutions must preserve the distinction between being heard and being qualified to provide expert insight. The NBA should listen to unconventional voices, but it must remain clear about why each person is invited and what that person is uniquely qualified to contribute. This is not a campaign against VeryDarkMan. He has a right to speak and participate in public discourse. The question is not whether he has a voice. He clearly does. The real question is one of institutional judgment.
What criteria should the Nigerian Bar Association use in selecting resource persons for its most important professional gathering? The NBA should remain open. It should remain contemporary. It should engage society and listen to diverse voices.
But it must also remain intellectually serious. So I return to the question: Is the NBA in short supply of resource persons? I do not believe so. The Nigerian Bar and the wider Nigerian intellectual community possess an extraordinary reservoir of scholars, practitioners, security experts, public intellectuals and professionals capable of interrogating the most difficult issues confronting our country. The bigger question, therefore, is whether, in our desire to remain contemporary and relevant, we are beginning to confuse visibility with knowledge, popularity with expertise, and influence with intellectual authority. The NBA is too important an institution to make that mistake. It must remain open, modern and courageous. But above all, it must remain intellectually serious. Because when a profession built upon reason, evidence, learning and disciplined argument loses the ability to distinguish between clout and competence, popularity and expertise, visibility and authority, it risks losing something far more important than its dignity. It risks losing its intellectual compass.
*Dr Ofoye writes from Lagos.
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