AWAY from the expected 2027-bound passing political noises of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, life continues for Nigerians as usual, unusually harsh. The Nigerian Bar Association platformed VeryDarkMan on one of its 2026 Annual General Conference panels named "Known Gunmen or Unknown Gunmen," about the same time when 15 corps members were kidnapped on their way from NYSC camp. "How do these events relate?" you may well ask. The obvious answer is that they are issues in the tiring and long conversations about the security of Nigeria and Nigerians. What is not so obvious is the ethics of people involved in the formal business of securing Nigerians and, in the same breath, getting justice where needed.
To start with, what is a conference? What is the modus operandi of the conference of the largest bar in Africa, the Nigerian Bar Association? A conference is a meeting of professionals or people with shared interests or association. Of the types, the NBA conference qualifies as a professional conference gathering lawyers, new and old, unlike an academic conference where university dons and researchers meet. Subversion may well happen to the structure of any conference, since the goal is, regardless of any type, to advance something that everyone at the conference concerns themself about. A professional conference may therefore lean into the mannerisms of an academic conference and vice versa. That potential for hybridity obviates, if not problematises, the participation of VDM in the NBA conference.
The NBA conference can be said to be the terminal point of leadership arrangements and professional authority in the legal profession in Nigeria, per sections of its constitution, and, in complement, a meeting of lawyers organized to advance the frontiers of law and justice in the country, per its advertised programmes. To advance conversations about justice, VDM as a panellist is not an ethical problem. It is VDM as an internet voice given to sensationalism that causes concerns. The ruckus over whether or not VDM is fit is more about the conference and the professionals involved, not the panel; about VDM as only one possible personhood, not more.
As an internet voice and a sensationalist, VDM has vindicated the people opposed to his presence at the conference, including me, and thousands of others, by his mockery of lawyers' outfits and manners of presentation in the heat of the debates. But to say that is all there is to VDM is failing to admit that he has played a significant role in the work of keeping our country safe. If nothing else, VDM has experience and personal justification as a Nigerian to strive for justice or go against anyone who sees him as inconsequential. Even as the matter rages on, he still gets tagged to issues on justice and human rights. What is worrisome about validating VDM as an enabler of justice is not just that he is mortal and may die, as he himself has said, it is also about the vacuum that created his clout and the pretence that someone like Ahmad Sakilda does not exist or is unqualified for that panel.
Read Also
Meta Launches New WhatsApp Calling
The vacuum that created VDM is the systemic corruption that seems to have permeated every public institution to the point that both moral and financial corruption have become the norm. The Nigerian lawyer, popularly known as Foundational Nupe Lawyer, caught the situation aptly in one of his tweets on the issue: If you report the elite to the police, he has a chance of bribing his way out of the situation and frustrate you out of the case. You are most likely not going to outspend the alleged scammer. Aside from this, if you engage a lawyer to submit a petition for you, the lawyer will get paid, police will request money for mobilization to approve the petition, secure an arrest warrant and run the necessary errands. If you are lucky to even get your money back, police will ask you for percentage of the money. Time can also be wasted on it before you get result.
One may dislike the excesses of VDM, as one should, but one cannot ignore the facts and truths surrounding the digital and cultural phenomenon that he is. Without VDM, more cases of injustice and cruelty to Nigerians would have gone untreated, if not unnoticed by the relevant authorities (at least, not with the urgency they would deploy when VDM talks), like the case of the 15 corps members kidnapped while returning from NYSC Bayelsa Camp. 11 out of the 15 corps members have been reportedly rescued, which is good news, thanks to the media coverage by digital natives and media houses. But this only confirms the weakness of the Nigerian security and justice architectures, which VDM decries.
"The court is the last hope of the common man" has since lost any appeal to it. Like politicians, it appears the people in the justice system seem to be riddled with an infestation of premium packages that are beyond the commoners. That is why VDM, an unpaid advocate, takes the place of many professionals. Everyone sees VDM, VDM sees what many do not see: we have a country under the weight of terrorists and kidnappers and the places where this should be their business are compromised. What we are not acknowledging is that professionals like Sakilda see much more. In 2018, TY Danjuma, a former military man, said publicly that the army colluded with killers of Nigerians. Back then, there was no VDM.
Notwithstanding what journalists like Salkida have done, there are media practitioners themselves who acknowledge VDM. In a broadcast during the week, Arise TV news anchor Rufai Oseni considered it hypothetical to condemn the invitation of VDM to the NBA conference. I condemned the invitation of VDM to the conference because I was convinced that there are Nigerians who have contributed more professionally to the efforts on tackling insecurity in the country. My first suggestion was Ahmad Salkida, the Nigerian journalist who has been reporting on terror-related acts in Nigeria and West Africa for no less than 15 years. I believe Salkida has the diverse stories of ordinary and affected Nigerians and has witnessed the insecurity imbroglio in all of its contemporary ugliness in Nigeria.
Read Also
The Nine Lives of Book Lovers and the Endangered Art of Human Writing in an Age of AI
As for answering the question of known or unknown gunmen, Salkida has devoted his professionalism to the point that he was arrested in 2016. It is not that VDM does not belong in the conversation, it is that, for all his clout, personal experience and garnered evidence, his proclivity for being uncouth betrays the gravity of the discourse. That is what Ahmad Salkida would not do. What gets VDM the shout where Ahmad Salkida, or even Kunle Adebajo exists, is the algorithmic democracy and the consumerist attention economy that orders what people see. Added to those are the inordinate love to abandon reports and texts (especially when lengthy and less adrenaline-inducing) by a teeming generation of Nigerians. The support for VDM as some last man standing is unfortunate, because it precisely ignores the works of journalists, researchers and other people who, in their ways, have never stopped probing the insecurity problem in the country. And the NBA gave this sentiment space to fester.
Leave a Comment