Controversy continues to dog the just-concluded Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, national election with claims of irregularities, name alteration and OTP failures which saw over 22, 000 of the over 80, 000 lawyers on the roll voting for a new executive.
The process was nearly marred by court cases and allegations of prior rigging even before the first vote was cast.
Afam Osigwe, president of the NBA, had accused some lawyers and candidates of playing politics by alleging that the exercise would be rigged before voting commenced.
Speaking at a press briefing on Friday, hours before the election was scheduled to begin, Osigwe said those making the allegations were attempting to delegitimise the electoral process without evidence.
“It is unfortunate that some lawyers and some candidates have chosen to play fast and loose with the truth and allege rigging even when the process has not commenced,” he said.
The NBA president said lawyers should refrain from making allegations they cannot substantiate, adding that previous election petitions alleging malpractice had been dismissed by the courts.
“It is not in the best practice of the legal profession for any person to state facts which he knows not to be true,” he said.
“If courts have dismissed the matter, if you have alleged rigging and you could not prove it, and the court dismisses it, then there was no rigging in law.”
Hours after the result of the poll was tallied, a defeated presidential candidate, Olumuyiwa Akinboro SAN, renewed his attack on the conduct of the poll, alleging that the exercise was riddled with irregularities that prevented him from effectively participating and undermined the credibility of the election.
In a statement on Sunday, Akinboro alleged that his name was altered on the presidential ballot from “Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro SAN” to “Aare Oluwatoyin Muyiwa Akinboro SAN,” describing the development as a grave error that compromised the integrity of the process.
He also claimed that while the photograph of the eventual winner, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya SAN, appeared on the electronic ballot, the photographs of the other presidential candidates, including his own, were omitted.
According to him, the voter authentication One-Time Password, OTP, was sent through email instead of registered phone numbers as stipulated in the election guidelines, raising questions about the competence of the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, ECNBA, and its service providers.
“It therefore begs the question whether the above anomalies were also a part of the cyberattack rather than a clear demonstration of the incompetence and unpreparedness by both the Service Providers and the ECNBA,” Akinboro said.
He further alleged that he was excluded from the presidential ballot because his correct name did not appear among the listed candidates.
Akinboro also dismissed the ECNBA’s explanation that a cyberattack disrupted the voting platform, arguing that the reported technical failures pointed instead to poor preparation and incompetence.
He alleged that the election platform failed to commence voting at the scheduled time despite the guidelines fixing the exercise to begin at midnight on July 18.
According to him, the 2026 election was “built on a faulty foundation,” alleging unconstitutional appointments into the ECNBA, partisanship by the NBA leadership, and the selection of incompetent service providers.
At the close of poll, Mrs Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya SAN emerged as the 33rd president of the association after defeating two other senior lawyers in the presidential election.
The Chairman of the ECNBA, Aham Ejelam, SAN, announced the presidential result at the NBA National Secretariat in Abuja.
Badejo-Okusanya polled 12,317 votes, representing 47.18 per cent of the total votes cast, to defeat her closest challenger, Lateef Akangbe, SAN, who secured 7,934 votes (30.39 per cent), while Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, garnered 5,855 votes (22.43 per cent).
According to the ECNBA chairman, a total of 26,106 votes were recorded in the election.
Her victory also makes her the second female president of the association, after Priscilla Kuye, who led the NBA from 1991 to 1992.
Other elected national officers include Oghenero Okoro, who emerged as First Vice-President with 11,024 votes; Afam Okeke, who was elected General Secretary with 8,478 votes; Aghogho Gladys, who won the position of Assistant General Secretary with 14,312 votes; and Chinelo Audrey Ofoegbunam, who emerged as Welfare Secretary with 14,911 votes.
Speaking after the declaration of the results, the outgoing NBA President, Afam Osigwe, SAN, said the election survived attempts to derail the process, including a cyberattack that forced the electoral committee to rebuild and migrate its ICT system to a more secure server.
“Our colleagues planned to truncate the election, but we stood firm. Every effort to derail this process failed. This is a trying time for the Bar. In the build-up to this election, many went to great lengths to rubbish the association,” he said.
