The runner-up in the Nigerian Bar Association presidential election, Lateef Akangbe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has filed a petition seeking to overturn the result and challenging the election of the declared winner. The petition asks the association's internal appeal body to review how the poll was conducted.
According to the electoral committee, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya was declared the winner after polling 12,317 votes, representing 47.18 per cent of the votes cast. Akangbe came second with 7,934 votes, or 30.39 per cent, making him the closest challenger in the contest.
In the petition, filed before the NBA National Office's Election Appeal Committee in Abuja, Akangbe contends that the election was invalid because of alleged non-compliance with the NBA constitution of 2015, as amended, and with the revised guidelines issued by the electoral committee for the conduct of the national office elections.
One of the main grounds of the petition is the alleged failure of the electronic voting platform. Akangbe submitted that the voting website went down within minutes of the commencement of the election and remained inaccessible for more than seven hours.
He noted that the electoral committee subsequently informed voters that the disruption had been caused by a coordinated cyber attack. Akangbe said this claim had not, however, been independently verified.
The petitioner further alleged that the voting process was then migrated to another website which, according to him, had not been agreed or ratified by the association's National Executive Committee, and had not been tested. He also challenged the extension of the voting period beyond the advertised deadline.
The petition now goes before the Election Appeal Committee, which will consider the grounds raised and decide on the challenge. The outcome will determine whether the result of the contest, in which Badejo-Okusanya was declared president, stands.