The raging controversy over the invitation of social media activist, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, to the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt has opened a far deeper wound than the question of who should speak at a lawyers’ gathering.
A former Mayor of the London Borough of Wandsworth, Erelu Tunwase Lola Ayonrinde, in a forceful intervention on the controversy, has effectively turned the spotlight away from VDM and back onto the Nigerian legal profession.
The Cultural Icon asked an uncomfortable question: “why are increasing numbers of ordinary Nigerians finding the voice of a social-media activist more compelling than that of lawyers, courts and established justice institutions?”
Her verdict is particularly stinging. According to Ayonrinde, the uproar over VDM’s appearance may have inadvertently exposed the very crisis the Nigerian Bar ought to be confronting—the erosion of public confidence in the institutions of justice and the growing perception that the legal system has become increasingly distant from the people it exists to serve.
The 66th NBA Conference, under the theme, “Beyond Limits,” attracted more than 24,000 registered participants, according to the organisers.
But rather than the conference theme dominating public discourse, VDM’s appearance on a panel examining insecurity became one of its biggest talking points.
And Ayonrinde has now asked whether the lawyers should be looking at the messenger—or examining the mirror.
VDM was invited to participate in a session on insecurity and the experiences of communities affected by violence.
His presence triggered criticism in some legal circles, with critics questioning why a social-media personality without formal legal qualifications should be given a platform at the NBA’s flagship professional gathering.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Femi Falana was among those who had questioned the decision, while others described VDM as an inappropriate choice for a legal conference.
But VDM himself made his position clear. He said he was not at the conference to teach lawyers law but to share his experiences of insecurity and his encounters with communities affected by violence.
And, that distinction forms the foundation of Erelu Ayonrinde’s argument.
Her position is essentially that professional qualification and lived experience are not mutually exclusive sources of knowledge.
If the discussion is about the reality of insecurity as experienced by ordinary Nigerians, she asks, “must the microphone necessarily be restricted to lawyers, academics, judges and security experts? Can the victims, witnesses, activists and community members who encounter insecurity first-hand not contribute meaningfully to the conversation?”.
For Ayonrinde, the answer is an emphatic yes.
She argued that the legal profession exists ultimately for the public—not merely for lawyers and judges—and that the experiences of those who consume legal services deserve to be heard within the profession’s own conversations.
In that sense, she views VDM not as an intruder into the legal profession, but as a representative of a constituency lawyers rarely hear directly enough: the ordinary Nigerian who has to navigate the Police, courts, lawyers and the wider justice system.
The intervention becomes even more provocative when it invokes the “mirror” argument attributed to lawyer and activist Dele Farotimi.
The metaphor is devastating in its simplicity: If a mirror reveals an ugly image, smashing the mirror does not make the face beautiful.
Applied to VDM, the argument is that his enormous popularity and his capacity to mobilise public anger may be symptoms of a deeper institutional failure.
She stated: “If citizens increasingly turn to social-media activists to expose injustice, pursue complaints, confront public institutions or demand accountability, perhaps the question should not simply be, ‘Why is this man so loud’?
“The more fundamental question is: Why are people listening to him in the first place?”
That is the challenge Ayonrinde throws at the Bar.
She suggests that the outrage over VDM’s presence risks becoming a classic case of attacking the messenger while ignoring the message.
And the message, whether lawyers like it or not, is that a significant segment of the Nigerian public is dissatisfied with the established justice architecture.
Ayonrinde’s intervention therefore amounts to a direct challenge to the moral standing of the Nigerian legal profession.
Hear her: “If lawyers are the traditional champions of justice, why has the Nigerian public become increasingly attracted to unconventional voices outside the courtroom?
“Why does a social-media personality command the attention of millions of Nigerians when lawyers have spent decades occupying the formal space of advocacy?
“Why do citizens sometimes appear more willing to trust activists, citizen journalists and online campaigners than the institutions established specifically to defend their rights?
“And perhaps most painfully: Has the Nigerian Bar done enough to remain the moral voice of the ordinary Nigerian?”
To Erelu Ayonrinde, these are not comfortable questions. But they are precisely the questions she believes the VDM controversy has placed squarely before the legal profession.
She continued: “One of the strongest arguments in favour of the invitation is that VDM was not presented as a constitutional scholar, Senior Advocate or authority on Nigerian jurisprudence.
“He was invited to speak about insecurity from the perspective of his experiences. That matters.
“The NBA itself subsequently recognised his participation, presenting him with an award after the session for attending and sharing his experiences with conference participants.
“That development makes the controversy even more intriguing. If the NBA believed that his presence was sufficiently valuable to warrant recognition, then the argument that his mere presence diminished the stature of the conference becomes harder to sustain without examining the purpose of the particular session.”
Ayonrinde’s position is therefore not that VDM should be exempt from scrutiny because he is popular. Far from it, she stated.
Her argument is that his lack of legal qualification should not automatically disqualify him from contributing to a discussion about a subject he has encountered directly.
However, she emphasized that If VDM makes serious allegations, those allegations must be tested and If he accuses institutions or individuals of wrongdoing, evidence matters.
But, Ayonrinde argues, those standards should apply equally to everybody—lawyer, judge, politician, academic, activist or ordinary citizen.
For Ayonrinde, this reinforces a broader principle: Institutions that demand accountability from government and society must also be willing to subject themselves to accountability.
“The Bar cannot demand transparency from public institutions while insulating itself from uncomfortable questions. It cannot champion justice while becoming allergic to criticism. And it cannot insist that the public listen to lawyers while refusing to listen to the public”, she stressed.
Ultimately, Ayonrinde’s intervention suggests that VeryDarkMan may be the least important character in the controversy. The real story is the crisis of trust.
She further stated: “The VDM phenomenon did not emerge in a vacuum. It has flourished in an environment where many Nigerians feel frustrated by bureaucratic institutions, suspicious of public authorities and increasingly impatient with formal channels that appear slow, expensive or inaccessible. Whether VDM’s methods are always right is another question.”
And Ayonrinde wants the Nigerian Bar to confront it.
She submitted: “The legal profession does not exist for lawyers. It exists for society. Lawyers may practise the law, but they do not own justice. Judges may interpret the law, but justice is ultimately experienced by citizens.
“Courts may pronounce judgments, but ordinary people live with the consequences. The Police may enforce the law, but it is the public that encounters the system at street level. And therefore, the people who experience the justice system firsthand must have a voice in conversations about how that system works.
“Why does VeryDarkMan have such a powerful constituency among Nigerians in the first place? Until the legal profession is prepared to answer that question honestly, attacking the messenger may achieve little. Because the mirror will remain. And the reflection will still be there.”
