• FILES ANSWER AGAINST APPEALS ON GENSEC, WELFARE SECRETARY

The Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA) has urged the NBA National Officers Election Appeals Committee to dismiss the petition by one of the presidential candidates challenging the return of Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya SAN as the duly elected President of the association.

In an Answer to Akangbe’s petition obtained by CITY LAWYER, the electoral body stated that the petition should be dismissed “as lacking in merit and substance, same having being substantially founded on the Petitioner’s ego trip to smear and degrade the entire election exercise and architecture, the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association, all on account of emotionalism and personal prejudices.”

According to the Answer filed by its Lead Counsel, Chief Aikhunegbe Malik SAN,

The Petition is fundamentally defective and incurably incompetent, in that:
a. The Petition is predicated on, presented upon and contended under a non-existent, abrogated and otiose law, that is, the NBA Constitution 2015 (as amended in 2021).
b. It was filed contrary to and in flagrant violation of the mandatory statutory prescription of Paragraph 3, Part X of the 2nd Schedule to the Constitution of the Nigerian Bar Association, 2015 (as amended in 2025)
(“The NBA Constitution”);
c. The Petitioner has proceeded against and or listed as “Respondents” to the Petition, persons and entities not statutorily recognized or cognizable under and by virtue of the NBA Constitution. “The Incorporated Trustees of the Nigerian Bar Association”, “Electoral Committee of the Nigerian” and “Bar Association”, joined to the
Petition as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Respondents respectively, are not cognizable under Paragraph 3, Part X of the 2nd Schedule to the NBA Constitution;
d. Further to sub-paragraph (b), supra, the said parties or entities are not proper, necessary, essential, relevant, material, integral or requisite parties to the Petition;
e. The “Electoral Committee of the Nigerian” and “Bar Association”, sued or joined in the Petition as the 2nd and 3rd Respondents, are not juristic entities known to or recognized by the NBA Constitution or any statute
or regulation whatsoever;
f. The Petitioner failed, refused or neglected to join to the Petition, the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA), which conducted the elections, and thus a statutory respondent by dint of Paragraph 3, Part X, 2nd Schedule to the NBA Constitution;
g. The non-joinder of statutory respondents to the Petition, on the one hand, and the joinder of unknown and non-juristic entities, on the other hand, contrary to the mandatory statutory prescription of the NBA Constitution, fatally impacts the jurisdiction of the esteemed Committee to entertain it;
h. The Petitioner’s purported evidence/statement on oath is incompetent, same having been [strangely] constituted under different parties that are otherwise alien or are not parties to the main Petition, thereby rendering the purported evidence at variance with the pleadings it purports to support;
i. The solitary ground of the Petition and the reliefs sought by the Petitioner are mutually exclusive and at variance with each/one other/another. Whereas the ground of the Petition speaks to alleged non-compliance [with the NBA Constitution], the reliefs are predicated on irregularities;
j. Additionally, the facts embodied in the Petition are at variance with the sole ground thereof. The one relates to irregularities, while the other focuses on or is etched on alleged non-compliance.
k. The reliefs sought and or embedded in the Petition are not grantable or maintainable. They are essentially vague, nebulous, amorphous and opaque.

2. The Petition is largely speculative, founded on conjectures, assumptions, hypothesis and anticipated facts. Viewed from every prism, therefore, the Petition discloses no cause or reasonable cause of action;
3. By reasons of the foregoing, the Petition is fatally infested with the jurisdictional vice of incompetence which, a fortiori, impacts and robs the Committee of the jurisdiction to countenance, let alone determine it.

ECNBA stated that “Additionally, prior to the time the ECNBA officially shut down the platform and, thereafter, announced the suspension of voting on 18.07.2026, no single vote had been successfully cast.”

It stated that “By 07.35hrs on 18.07.2026, voting formally resumed on the newly acquired domain, in consonance with the notice issued by the ECNBA. On Time Password (OTP) were successfully sent and delivered to voters who correctly followed the instructions and advice previously circulated by the ECNBA to members of the Association and reiterated on the landing page of the voting domain.”

According to the electoral body, “The allegation that over 56,107 voters were unable to vote is untrue. Whilst the ECNBA is not in a position to determine where and how the Petitioner arrived at or manufactured this figure, the correct statement is that the figure may very well represent verified voters who voluntarily elected to exercise their right not to participate in the election process.”

It stated that “The ECNBA further contends that given the percentage of those who voted in comparison to the total number of names on the voter’s register, it is safe and convenient to describe the situation as “low voters’ turnout” or “voters’ apathy” which has nothing to do with the credibility of the election. Accordingly, it is incorrect to equate low voters turn out with disenfranchisement. They are not one and the same.”

The electoral body stated that “The allegations regarding the use or deployment unrelated platforms, unexplained vote tally discrepancies, pre-programmed geometric progression of the winners votes and data manipulation contained in the Petition are unfounded, unmerited and merely sensational. They are incorrect and cannot be seriously made by the Petitioner.”

According to the ECNBA, “The ECNBA reiterates that the reliefs sought by the Petitioner are incompetent, defective, not grantable and not maintainable.”

The electoral body then “prays the Committee to refuse all the reliefs sought by the Petitioner and consequentially, dismiss the Petition as lacking in merit and substance, same having being substantially founded on the Petitioner’s ego trip to smear and degrade the entire election exercise and architecture, the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association, all on account of emotionalism and personal prejudices.”

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