The 2026 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) presidential election has entered a new phase after Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe formally challenged the outcome, asking the NBA National Officers Election Appeal Committee to cancel the exercise and conduct a fresh poll.
Akangbe, one of the candidates in the July 18 election, filed a petition dated July 27 before the Appeal Committee in Abuja. He is contesting the declaration of Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okunsanya, SAN, as the winner, alleging that the election was plagued by serious technical failures and procedural breaches that undermined its credibility.
The Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA) had declared Badejo-Okunsanya winner after she secured 12,317 votes, representing 47.18 percent of the ballots cast. Akangbe finished second with 7,934 votes (30.39 percent), while Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro received 5,855 votes, accounting for 22.43 percent.
In his petition, Akangbe argued that the election did not comply with the provisions of the NBA Constitution 2015 (as amended) and the revised ECNBA guidelines governing the 2026 national officers’ election. He claimed the electronic voting platform failed within minutes of the exercise, remaining inaccessible for more than seven hours before voting resumed.
According to the petition, the ECNBA attributed the disruption to a coordinated cyberattack. However, Akangbe argued that the claim had not been independently verified. He also alleged that voting was later moved to a different website that had neither been approved by the NBA National Executive Committee nor tested by the candidates’ information technology representatives. He further claimed that the use of multiple voting links created confusion among eligible voters.
Akangbe also questioned the integrity of the electronic voting process, alleging that the live results displayed during the election followed what he described as an unusually predictable pattern in favour of the eventual winner. He said an expert review suggested the voting trend could indicate possible pre-programming of the system. Based on this, he requested access to the voting platform’s backend and other technical records to enable an independent audit.
The petitioner further alleged that thousands of eligible lawyers were unable to vote because they did not receive the One-Time Passwords (OTPs) required to authenticate their participation. He claimed that although 82,213 members were listed as eligible voters, only 26,106 successfully cast their ballots, leaving 56,107 unable to participate. Akangbe also maintained that he was among those who could not vote and argued that more than 25,000 of the affected voters were expected to support his candidacy.
He additionally faulted the duration of the election, stating that while voting was officially scheduled to end at 11:59 p.m. on July 18, it allegedly continued into the early hours of July 19 without sufficient notice or explanation. He insisted that the extension further weakened the transparency of the process.
As part of his appeal, Akangbe is seeking access to the voters’ register, server logs, application records, network traffic data, system backups, OTP delivery records, authentication logs, voting timestamps, security protocols, administrative access records, and other technical documents. He argued that these materials are essential for a comprehensive audit of the election.
Among the reliefs sought, Akangbe wants the Appeal Committee to declare that the election was substantially compromised by irregularities, nullify the results, set aside the declaration of Badejo-Okunsanya as winner, and order the NBA to conduct a fresh presidential election. The Incorporated Trustees of the Nigerian Bar Association, the ECNBA, and Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okunsanya, SAN, have been listed as respondents in the petition, which is now awaiting determination by the Appeal Committee.
