Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The first runner-up in the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association presidential election, Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has launched a blistering critique of the electoral process that produced Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya as the association's 33rd president, describing the exercise as "shambolic" and arguing that the legal profession has become a laughingstock to the entire nation. In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, July 21, 2026, Akangbe said the election's widespread failures have left lawyers without the moral authority to criticise Nigeria's electoral processes, including those of the Independent National Electoral Commission. "It's so unfortunate that we are where we are today, given the fact that we're lawyers who are supposed to be the bastion of democracy. And to know that even we cannot organise ourselves properly is so unfortunate. I said the election was shambolic because of the electoral process," Akangbe said. "We've become a laughingstock to entire Nigeria. Politicians are looking at us, other professionals are looking at us and saying, 'Look at these lawyers, they can't even organise themselves. They can't even conduct a credible election. Tomorrow, they want to talk about other associations or even the Nigerian state not being able to conduct a proper election.' How do we have that moral ground to look INEC in the face when they know even we couldn't do it properly? Charity begins at home, as they say".
The 2026 NBA national elections, held on Saturday, July 18, 2026, were marred by a series of controversies from the outset. The Electoral Committee of the NBA confirmed that the electronic voting platform was subjected to a "deliberate, coordinated, and sustained cyberattack" by external actors, which delayed the commencement of voting from midnight to 7:35 a.m. The ECNBA said its cybersecurity team, working with the Election Voting Service Provider, activated security protocols and countermeasures to repel the attack and restore the integrity of the system. Despite the restoration of the platform, widespread complaints of technical glitches, authentication failures, and voter disenfranchisement continued to plague the exercise throughout the day, with many lawyers reporting that they were unable to cast their votes despite repeated attempts.
Akangbe, who secured 7,934 votes representing 30.39 per cent of the total votes cast, finishing behind Badejo-Okusanya who polled 12,317 votes (47.18 per cent), and ahead of Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, who garnered 5,855 votes (22.43 per cent), argued that the election's outcome was illegitimate because the process itself was fundamentally flawed. He pointed to the sharp decline in voter turnout from over 56 per cent in previous elections to approximately 27 per cent in 2026, despite 82,164 accredited voters. "Let's make no mistake: it's not a case of low turnout. It was a case of disenfranchisement. I couldn't vote myself. The other candidate couldn't vote. I understand even the winner couldn't vote, but nothing has been said about it," Akangbe said. He maintained that thousands of willing lawyers were locked out of the platform because of technical failures, not because of apathy.
Akangbe also questioned the decision of the ECNBA to move the election date from July 20 to July 18 without the approval of the NBA National Executive Council. He further alleged that an agreement reached on July 15, 2026, to postpone the poll by one week to allow lawyers to become familiar with the newly introduced SMS authentication system was not honoured. "The ECNBA unilaterally moved the NEC-approved election date from 20 July to 18 July, without obtaining NEC approval. At the meeting of 15 July 2026, in the presence of the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation and the Chairman of the Body of Benchers, an agreement was reached to postpone by one week to allow proper sensitisation on the new SMS-based voting mechanism, a mechanism that had been adopted less than forty-eight hours before the original election date. That agreement was not honoured," Akangbe said in a statement.
The senior lawyer also criticised the conduct of the electoral committee, alleging that the voting platform collapsed shortly after voting commenced and that the ECNBA's explanation of a cyberattack failed to account for what he described as poor preparation and inadequate capacity. According to him, the platform was never subjected to rigorous stress testing or ethical hacking before election day, making the disruption predictable. "A cyberattack on an election platform is not an unforeseeable act of God. It is the single most predictable threat, in any online election in 2026. In any serious deployment, the platform would have been subjected to rigorous stress testing and ethical hacking long before election day, to identify and close precisely these vulnerabilities. A platform built to withstand an attack, would have degraded under pressure. This one did not degrade. It disappeared. This was not a cybersecurity failure, but a capacity failure," he said.
Akangbe further alleged that the ECNBA breached its own revised electronic voting guidelines by sending one-time passwords through email instead of SMS, contrary to assurances given to members less than 24 hours before the election. He also claimed that the electronic ballot initially displayed only Badejo-Okusanya's photograph, while the photographs of the other two presidential candidates were either omitted or failed to render until after concerns had been raised. Additionally, he alleged that there were credible reports of multiple voting on the platform, contrary to the principle of one member, one vote.
Responding to questions about whether he recognises the declared winner as the legitimate NBA President, Akangbe maintained that a flawed electoral process could not produce a legitimate outcome. "Well, a system that was not credible, that is illegitimate, has thrown her up. What she wants to do about it, what everyone wants to do about it, is up to her and the membership," he said. He added that if he were in the winner's position, he would call for a fresh election to secure legitimacy. "But if I were in her shoes, given the fact that I know out of 82,000 members, only 25,000 voted, that was a massive disenfranchisement. Not a low turnout—disenfranchisement. If I were in her shoes, and such a process threw me up, I would today call for a rerun because I want legitimacy over my presidency. I would ask for a rerun today, and that's the proper thing I would have expected the ECNBA to do," he said.
Criticising Badejo-Okusanya's response to the election's alleged flaws, Akangbe said she had failed to acknowledge the process was flawed, warning that without recognising the problems, meaningful electoral reforms would be unlikely. "The most interesting thing is that she has granted interviews, she has spoken to people already on this, and she has not for once acknowledged the process was flawed. She hasn't said it. She's pretended as if it was a perfect system that threw her up. For me, that is very concerning because it shows that she doesn't believe that the process needs to be overhauled. She doesn't believe the process was broken. If you don't think it's broken, you're not going to fix it. So that means she has never accepted or acknowledged the fact that the process was flawed," Akangbe said.
In her acceptance speech, Badejo-Okusanya called for unity within the legal profession and urged members to move beyond the bitterly fought election. She stated, "Today, I stand before you with a heart filled with profound gratitude and a deep sense of responsibility." She also stated that her victory was not hers alone but belonged to members who believed that the NBA could become "stronger, more inclusive, more responsive, and better positioned to serve the interests of all lawyers." She pledged to lead with "integrity, courage, humility, fairness, and accountability," vowing to serve as president for all members of the association. However, the post-election dispute is the latest in a series of controversies trailing the 2026 NBA election, which was also preceded by litigation, calls for the postponement of the poll, and disagreements over the choice of a consensus candidate for the presidency.
As the NBA grapples with the fallout from the disputed election, Akangbe's criticism has resonated with many lawyers who have expressed similar concerns about the integrity of the process. The controversy has also drawn comparisons to Nigeria's national elections, with some lawyers noting that the NBA has lost the moral ground to critique INEC. As Akangbe and his team review their options, the question remains whether the association can restore confidence in its electoral processes and whether the newly elected president will take steps to address the concerns raised by her opponents. For now, the NBA finds itself at a crossroads, with its credibility and moral authority hanging in the balance.
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