By Ugo Uwaeke
The argument by Monday Ubani, SAN which holds that non-traditional speakers at the 2026 NBA conference lowered the standard of the professional gathering is fundamentally flawed because it prioritizes exclusionary elitism over democratic, disruptive, and socially impactful engagement.
To understand this very perspective by Monday Ubani, SAN, as contained in his preliminary report of the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Conference in Port Harcourt, it’s aposite to analyze his submission through the lens of class theories.
Overtime, we have seen that professional bodies like the NBA often fall into the trap of Classical Elitism Theory, propunded by theorists like Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca and Robert Michael, who’s popular for his IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY. Collectively, the crux or central thesis of their arguments is that society is inevitably ruled by a select group of intellectuals and elites. That all societies are inevitably divided into two groups: a small ruling minority (the elite) and a powerless ruled majority (the masses). To them, True democracy is an illusion because organized minoritarian rule is an inescapable law of human nature and social organization. The opinions of those at the lower spectrum of the society doesn’t matter. Everything , to them, is viewed and measured by people’s social stature.
That’s exactly what SAN Monday Ubani laboured to advance in paragraph five and six of his interim report. I am not a lawyer and did not attend the NBA conference, and as such, cannot fault other positions he canvased against in his report that specifically boarded on the welfare of the participants. However, as a citizen, I am convinced that a modern gathering of lawyers must be inherently democratic, not elitist. This is especially so, given the fact of the prominent gap-bridging roles between the rulers and the ruled lawyers play in every society, hence I disagree intoto with the ideas he espoused in the stated paragraphs.
The law does not exist in an intellectual vacuum is a popular legal maxim. Meaning that law governs all strata of society. A bar association conference should mirror the democracy it claims to protect, offering a level playing field for diverse voices. And to achieve this, one of such steps is to understand the place and Power of Social Capital in a democratic society and incorporate them in the efforts to finding answers to many questions troubling our society. This can be done by BENDING AND OR LOWERING THE BARRIER OF ENTRY TO THE PODIUM for individuals who may not possess towering intellectual standing like the Mondays of this country but command massive societal followership. That’s democratic. And I think the organizers of the 2026 NBA conference got it right.
These guests Mr Monday Ubani vigorously denounced their invitation wield organic influence and ground-level insights that the Ubani’s highly cherished or preferred elites often lack.
Methinks that the organizers employed the principle of Pluralist Theory In contrast to Elitism, in reaching the decision to bend or lower the staircase to the podium to accommodate men like Sowore and VeryDarkman.
Pluralist Theory, propunded by Robert Dahl, holds that power and influence should be distributed among various groups in society, rather than concentrated in a single elite class. This idea seems to rely on different perspectives to understanding societal challenges.
By labeling inclusion of certain speakers as “lowering the standard,” SAN Monday Ubani merely reenforces classism which enforces an elite gatekeeping that preserves its own hegemony. Rejecting this long-standing gatekeeping which has taken the country nowhere entails allowing the NBA to integrate what Antonio Gramsci described as organic intellectuals. And these individuals who emerge directly from the subaltern/Streets and have been loudly speaking directly of the everyday realities of the masses are intellectuals in their own rights. So, no standard was lowered.
Bringing popular figures with large followings, that’s, individuals with ‘street credibility’ like VDM and Sowore as panelists in national discourse organized by the NBA is neither a diminution nor detract from the prestigiousness of the body. Rather, it satisfies pluralist democracy. It is garmane and acknowledges that societal contribution and civic influence are valid forms of currency. For me, the NBA, by that singular action, lived up to the one of its essential creeds.
There is need or necessity of Strategic Disruption. Dr Mazi Eze owns this idea. He was the person who briefly highlighted this idea in his Facebook post, and I can’t agree less. To truly drive a society forward, professional gatherings must embrace disruptions. Adhering strictly to “normal standards” often breeds complacency and insularity within a system. That was the message the celebrity Lecturer sent out. Organized bodies must learn to shake up the Status quo. Including highly influential but unconventional and maverick speakers acts as a disruptive catalyst. It forces proponents of traditionalists, like Monday Ubani out of their comfort zones, with a view to seeing, understanding and analyzing situations from multifaceted prisms.
Another salient point which eluded Our SAN is the fact that he failed to understand that sometimes, the most vital societal messages, such as gross human rights violations, systemic corruption, state-organized crimes etc cannot be effectively delivered through dry, dense elitist standpoint. They require the raw, authentic communicative prowesses of individuals who actually hold the ear of the public. Our brother, Monday Ubani and I knew that even in a hundred years, he cannot say those things VeryDarkman said. Not necessarily because he can’t or lacked the aplomb and intellectual fecundity, but, ethical standards and/or in-group bias cum elitist solidarity, which his position as a Senior Advocate and especially, a practical politician predisposed him to, whether through direct involvement or by mere association, prevents him from making such statements publicly and on camera. Yet, those exposes are necessary and must be made for the good of the country.
Another good reason that may have informed the decision to include these guys that “lowered the standard” is the need to for expansion of the Audience. For far too long, we have been hearing from these traditionalists, elites and the comprador bourgeoisie, and they are now sounding like broken records, repeating same jejune tarradiddles, that haven’t improved our lots in this country, thus lost the trust, attention and ears of the populace. Therefore, the inclusion of disruptive speakers does not only democratized the conference itself, it enlivened and brought the session to the attention of the street. Brother Monday seems unawares of the fact that those guys pull the eyes of the broader public toward the August gathering of Nigeria’s legal professionals, thus bridging the massive gap between the ivory tower of the comity of lawyers and the ordinary citizens they purportedly serve.
In Conclusion. May it occur to our brother that a forward-thinking NBA annual convention should not be an insular club of professional and or intellectual aristocrats. By judging those guys purely on the lens of traditional academic metrics, his perspective overlooks the immense democratic capital of popular influence. True intellectualism lies not in exclusionary rhetoric, but in the capacity to engage, disrupt, and synthesize the diverse forces shaping society.
To believe only the opinion of the elite shape society is an outdated delusion; true social evolution is driven by a collective force that includes the streets. Societal progress is not an intellectual/elite monopoly; but a fact of combination of systemic forces, inclusive of the grassroots movements which VDM personified in this context.
I may not be their fan, but give VDM and Sowore their flowers, biko. They rightfully earned their seats in that podium.
Ugochukwu Uwaeke.
