This is exactly how madness starts—when a social media agitator begins to imagine that he is now on the same intellectual and professional level as senior lawyers, judges and SANs.
And frankly, I don’t even blame VDM entirely for this travesty. I blame the clueless NBA leadership that created the platform for this desecration of the Bar.
When we disrespect our own profession by inviting an agbero-style social media agitator—someone known for public confrontations, including fighting in public and even on an airplane—to mount the stage of an NBA Conference and address senior lawyers, judges and SANs, this is exactly the kind of outcome we should expect.
I used to be a big fan of VDM for what he does, as long as he stayed within his lane. Social media activism has its place, and he has undoubtedly used his platform effectively on many occasions.
But ridiculing the legal profession is another matter entirely.
The beginning of madness is when a barely educated public agitator, intoxicated by social media popularity and the platforms respectable institutions have handed him, begins to imagine that popularity is the same thing as education, professional training, intellectual depth or wisdom—and that he is somehow better equipped to lecture trained lawyers about their own profession.
I still don’t blame him entirely.
I blame those who apparently cannot distinguish between being a successful social media influencer and possessing the analytical and cerebral capacity required to engage some of the finest minds at the Bar at their own professional conference.
If you invite someone into your house, put him in the chairman’s chair and hand him the microphone, don’t be surprised when he eventually begins to think he owns the house.
NBA brought this upon itself.
Ọ̀mà ṣe o!
Ope Banwo
Mayor of Fadeyi
Founder, Naija Lives Matter