By Our Reporter
Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, has emerged as the early frontrunner in the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) presidential election, even as one of her main rivals called for the immediate suspension of the poll over alleged technical failures and security breaches.
Early results released at 11:33 a.m. on Saturday showed Badejo-Okusanya leading with 4,860 votes, representing 41.77 per cent of the 11,600 ballots counted at the time.
Her closest challenger, Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe (SAN), secured 3,851 votes, accounting for 33.10 per cent, while Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro (SAN) polled 2,924 votes, representing 25.13 per cent.
Although the final outcome was still being awaited as of the time of filing this report, the early tally indicated that the legal practitioners’ body was tilting in favour of Badejo-Okusanya
The election, however, has been overshadowed by renewed controversy over the credibility of the electronic voting process.
On Saturday, Akangbe formally petitioned the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA), demanding an immediate suspension of the ongoing election, alleging what he described as a “catastrophic structural and technical collapse” of the voting platform less than three hours after polling commenced.
Electronic voting for the NBA national election opened at midnight on July 18, with the final results expected on Sunday.
In his protest letter, Akangbe urged the ECNBA to halt the exercise, preserve all voting records, commission an independent audit of the electronic voting platform and postpone the election until all identified issues were resolved.
According to him, the electronic voting portal became inaccessible to the majority of the approximately 82,000 accredited voters by 2:09 a.m., with users reportedly encountering authentication failures, system errors and repeated timeouts.
He questioned how votes could have been recorded during the period the platform was allegedly inaccessible.
“If the portal is inaccessible to the general membership, how were any votes cast at all? Who had access to the platform during a window in which the public could not enter?” Akangbe asked.
He further queried the integrity of the process, asking how candidates and voters could verify that no unauthorised voting had taken place while the system was offline.
“A portal that collapses within the first two hours of a national election and then proposes to ‘restart’ is not a portal that can be trusted to deliver a credible result at any point thereafter,” he said.
Akangbe also accused the electoral committee of violating its own revised electronic voting guidelines by allegedly sending one-time passwords (OTPs) via email instead of SMS.
According to him, the ECNBA had assured members less than 24 hours before the election that authentication codes would be transmitted strictly through registered mobile phone numbers to strengthen election security.
He, however, alleged that many voters received their OTPs through email shortly after voting commenced.
“This is not a minor technical glitch. This is a complete and bad-faith breach of the security architecture that the ECNBA itself published. If OTPs are being delivered via email, the entire authentication framework is compromised,” he stated.
The senior advocate further alleged that the electronic ballot displayed the photograph of only one of the three presidential candidates, while the images of the other contestants, including his, were either missing or failed to load.
He argued that the defect created an unfair visual advantage and raised serious concerns about the adequacy of the platform’s testing before deployment.
“A ballot that displays one candidate’s photograph while omitting the others is not a neutral instrument,” he said.
Warning against proceeding with the election under the prevailing conditions, Akangbe maintained that any outcome from the exercise would lack legitimacy.
“A flawed, rushed election carried out today under these chaotic conditions cannot yield a credible result. Whoever is declared the winner of an election conducted on a collapsed portal, with breached authentication, and on a visually defective ballot, will not lead the Bar with the confidence of the profession,” he added.
The latest developments come barely 24 hours after NBA President, Afam Osigwe (SAN), dismissed allegations that he was attempting to manipulate the election or interfere in the work of the ECNBA.
Addressing journalists in Abuja on Friday, Osigwe insisted that the electoral committee operated independently and was constitutionally empowered to conduct the election without interference from the NBA leadership.
He also denied claims that he was backing any preferred candidate, describing the allegations as politically motivated and unsupported by evidence.
Osigwe further maintained that longstanding claims that NBA elections had been manipulated had never been substantiated before any court and dismissed suggestions that his personal voting preference could influence the outcome of the election.
The NBA leadership has consistently maintained that the ECNBA remains solely responsible for the conduct of the association’s national elections despite mounting concerns raised by some candidates and stakeholders over the integrity of the process.
