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I commend the Nigerian Bar Association for inviting Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, to attend its annual general conference in Port Harcourt.
Here is a young man commanding the attention and following of millions of Nigerians, especially young people, in a deeply troubled country. Whether you admire him, loathe him, or disapprove of his methods, he has become an important voice in our national debate. Surely, one of Nigeria’s foremost professional bodies should be interested in understanding the phenomenon it represents.
The objection is that it’s unconventional? Who doesn’t dress like the typical conference speaker? Who speaks in a way unfamiliar to the courtroom or lecture hall? Or approaches problems in a way that isn’t found in a textbook?
Institutions must be careful not to confuse sophistication with relevance, academic credentials with social influence, or respectability with wisdom. One person may not speak the language of the elite and yet express the anger, frustration and aspirations of millions of people. Indeed, one reason for the growing gap between our institutions and our young people is that the establishment too often listens only to people who look, dress, and talk like members of the establishment.
VeryDarkMan can be abrasive. Sometimes it can be excessive. He may occasionally get his facts or methods wrong. These are legitimate reasons for criticism and questioning. But these are no reasons to pretend that he does not exist or that his influence is insignificant.
An invitation is not an approval. This is not an honorary law degree, nor an admission to the rank of senior lawyers of Nigeria. Inviting someone to speak simply means creating an opportunity to listen to them, question them, challenge them, and understand the constituency whose attention they are attracting.
After all, what is the legal profession if not the disciplined hearing of different parties? Lawyers defend the principle that even the most unpopular person deserves to be heard. It would therefore be strange if the Bar Association were afraid to listen to an unconventional citizen because his appearance, his speech or his manner do not conform to the expectations of the elite.
The NBA conference should not simply be a gathering where distinguished lawyers speak to other distinguished lawyers using vocabulary familiar only to themselves. The law does not operate in a vacuum. He interacts daily with public anger, social media, citizen journalism, disinformation, defamation, police abuse, mob justice, institutional failure and the restless energies of young people. VeryDarkMan sits, sometimes uncomfortably, at the intersection of many of these issues.
His appearance therefore gave the lawyers the opportunity to question several important questions. Why do millions of young Nigerians trust social media activists more than established institutions? Why are citizens increasingly voicing their complaints to online personalities rather than to the police, courts, regulators or traditional media? What does his popularity tell us about the collapse of public trust in official redress channels? Where should the law draw the line between citizen advocacy, defamation, harassment and public interest?
What happened at the conference itself confirmed the NBA’s decision to invite him.
When VeryDarkMan declared that if anyone attacked him, he would kill them, the moderator immediately called him to order. He was firmly reminded that resentment, anger or even the feeling of having been wronged does not give any citizen license to take the life of another person.
The law does not allow an individual to become a complainant, judge and executioner in his own cause. Except within the narrow and strictly defined limits of self-defense, no citizen can justify killing another. Even the death penalty can only be imposed by a court of competent jurisdiction after due process and conducted strictly in accordance with the law.
Likewise, when he claimed that all members of the military were corrupt, he was corrected and made to understand the danger of such sweeping generalizations. Some military personnel can commit acts of corruption, just as some lawyers, journalists, politicians and members of every other profession can be corrupt. Such individuals should be identified, reported and prosecuted where evidence exists. But it is unfair to broadly condemn an entire institution and every person who serves there.
These exchanges demonstrated precisely why engagement is preferable to exclusion. If the NBA had refused to invite VeryDarkMan, he could have continued to make such statements in front of millions of followers without the benefit of immediate, informed correction. At the conference, however, his claims were tested against the law, challenged by experienced professionals, and corrected in public.
This is civics in action.
Lawyers heard the powerful voice of social media directly, while VeryDarkMan and the millions of people who follow him were exposed to discipline, restrictions, and the protection of the law. The dialogue worked both ways. He was not invited to teach the law to lawyers; was invited to share the experiences and attitudes prevalent in a significant segment of society. In turn, lawyers had the opportunity to demonstrate what the law allows, what it prohibits, and why these limits matter.
This also responds to those who believe that inviting a controversial figure is equivalent to giving them a platform. A serious institution does not simply invite people to applaud or decorate them. It invites them so that their ideas can be examined, their experiences understood and, where necessary, their excesses corrected.
Serious institutions elsewhere have long understood this. The United Nations invited young climate activist Greta Thunberg – who held no public office and had no conventional diplomatic credentials – to address world leaders because she had mobilized a generation around climate change. Her youth, blunt language and unconventional methods did not disqualify her. They were among the reasons the institution needed to listen to her.
Similarly, the Oxford Union has built its reputation by inviting influential and sometimes controversial figures from outside conventional academic and political circles. Its purpose is not simply to provide a platform for approved opinions. It also allows members to question and challenge people they disagree with. The basic principle is simple: commitment is not approval and exposure is not approval.
The American Bar Association has also brought actors, artists, activists, and people with lived experience into its programs when their contributions illuminate issues of justice. This recognizes that justice cannot be fully understood through laws, precedents and legal doctrine alone. It must also be examined through the culture, experience and realities of the people the law is intended to serve.
I sometimes wish that an earlier generation of Nigerian lawyers and other professionals had invited Fela Anikulapo-Kuti to speak to them while he was alive. Perhaps the elite would gain a better understanding of the man, his rebellion, and the philosophy behind his music.
Many have dismissed Fela because of his appearance, lifestyle, speech and unconventional behavior. Yet behind that appearance was a fierce criticism of military dictatorship, police brutality, corruption, colonial mentality and abuse of power. Fela was not always right and it was not necessary to approve of every aspect of his life to recognize the questions he forced Nigeria to face.
Unfortunately, our society often waits for its dissidents to die before discovering that behind their rude language was a message that deserved attention. We reject them when they are alive, sanitize them when they are dead, and then cite them at conferences they probably would not have been invited to attend in their lifetime.
The same principle applies here. There is no need to canonize VeryDarkMan. You don’t have to approve everything he said or did. But a society that refuses to listen to influential voices because they are rough around the edges learns nothing about the currents moving beneath its feet.
Far from embarrassing the NBA, the exchanges at the conference showed that the Association is carrying out one of its most important public tasks: addressing popular but dangerous assumptions with legal knowledge.
VeryDarkMan came with the language of the streets and the instincts of an activist. Lawyers responded with the constraints of the law, the demands of proof, and the discipline of reason. Each side was exposed to the other’s world.
The NBA did not belittle itself by inviting him. Instead, it demonstrated the confidence of an institution willing to step outside its professional enclosure and address the messy realities of contemporary Nigeria.
Let the unconventional voices speak. Let the lawyers listen to them, question them and challenge them. And let those voices, in turn, listen to the lawyers.
This is how a living society dialogues. This is how citizens learn. This is how institutions stay relevant.
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