Human rights lawyer and activist Dele Farotimi has warned that Nigeria’s weakening justice system could produce more social media activists like Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan.

Farotimi said the growing influence of VeryDarkMan was a reflection of Nigerians’ diminishing confidence in formal institutions, particularly the police and judiciary.

He made the remarks in a video published on YouTube on Saturday while reacting to the controversy surrounding VeryDarkMan’s invitation to participate in the Nigerian Bar Association’s 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt.

Farotimi argued that a country with functioning institutions would have little need for individuals to assume roles that citizens perceive as alternatives to the courts.

“A society that has law and order, that is ruled by law, that has a functional police system, a functional court system, would not even tolerate the presence or existence of a VDM,” he said.

“VDM is the life indictment of a judicial system that is essentially peopled by crooks in the place of jurists.”

The lawyer said VeryDarkMan should be viewed less as the cause of the problem and more as a reflection of deeper institutional failures.

He said attempts to silence or attack the activist would not address the conditions that had contributed to his popularity.

“VDM is merely the image in your mirror. The society you have built requires VDM to find justice,” Farotimi said.

He dismissed the long-standing description of the judiciary as the “last hope of the common man”, arguing that many Nigerians now increasingly look outside the formal justice system when seeking redress.

“They say the judiciary is the last hope of the common man. Nah, lie. VDM has become the last hope of the common man in the society that you built,” he said.

Farotimi warned that the phenomenon could grow if public grievances continued to go unresolved.

“The society you built requires VDM to do justice. Very soon there will be multiplicities of VDM in the society that you have built,” he said, adding that “copycat VDMs” were already emerging.

He also raised the possibility that a continued collapse of confidence in formal institutions could eventually produce more dangerous forms of vigilante justice.

“If the courts are useless, the VDMs of this world will emerge,” he said. “The ones who will come after, some of them will come behind him and they will carry guns to enforce their laws.”

Farotimi urged Nigerians, particularly members of the legal profession, to examine the institutional failures that had allowed such personalities to acquire influence.

He said the controversy surrounding VeryDarkMan’s appearance at the NBA conference should therefore be treated as an opportunity for reflection rather than merely a dispute over the activist’s conduct or statements.

VeryDarkMan had criticised the legal profession following his participation in a panel discussion on insecurity at the NBA conference.

The social media activist questioned the continued description of law as a noble profession and criticised the economic difficulties facing some Nigerian lawyers.

His remarks attracted criticism from sections of the legal profession and renewed debate over whether his invitation to a major gathering of lawyers was appropriate.

Farotimi, however, said the reaction should not obscure the larger question of why a social media personality had become influential in matters traditionally handled by lawyers, police and the courts.

“It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen by accident. We didn’t stumble into this. We allowed it,” he said.

The lawyer also rejected the idea that removing or discrediting individual personalities would resolve corruption and institutional weakness.

He said meaningful reform would require collective action to rebuild confidence in the justice system.

Farotimi, who has previously written extensively on Nigeria’s judiciary, said the problems confronting the system could not be solved by the death or removal of any single individual.

“No matter how corrupt you might deem a single person, human beings are necessarily mortals,” he said.

He argued that only sustained collective efforts to reform institutions could prevent the emergence of more individuals who seek to fill perceived gaps in the justice system.

The comments come amid renewed public debate over the role of social media activists in exposing alleged wrongdoing and demanding accountability from public officials and institutions.

While supporters of such activists often view them as giving a voice to people who feel excluded from formal channels, critics have raised concerns about due process, accuracy and the dangers of replacing established institutions with personalities.

Farotimi’s argument was that the debate should go beyond the personality of VeryDarkMan and address the institutional failures that have helped create the environment in which such influence can thrive.