The Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA) has urged the National Officers Election Appeal Committee to “strike out and/or dismiss” the petition brought by two candidates in the just concluded NBA Elections.
In separate answers obtained by CITY LAWYER and filed yesterday at the Appeals Committee registry, the electoral body apologized for the omission of the photographs of Mr. Barth Okoye Aniche and Chinwendu Ugochukwu, saying however that the omissions did not adversely affect the outcome of the elections.
In a preliminary objection against the petition filed by Okoye, ECNBA stated that the petition “is fundamentally defective and incurably incompetent,” adding that “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”).”
Aside from ECNBA, other Respondents in the suit are AFAM OKEKE, CHIDI EZENWAFOR, DR. RAPULU ERNEST NDUKA, NNAEBUKA ONYEBUCHI NWAEZE and OKEY LEO OHAGBA, listed as 2nd to 6th Respondents respectively.
The electoral body stated that “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 parties joined to the Petition as the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Respondents respectively, are not cognizable under Paragraph 3, Part X of the 2nd Schedule to the NBA Constitution.”
It contended that “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.”
The ECNBA stated that 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.”
According to the ECNBA, “the election was conducted in substantial compliance with the NBA Constitution and the Guidelines issued by the 1st Respondent. There was no incidence of vote duplication, no recorded case of voting outside the voting window and the votes cast electronically match exactly with the tally declared.”
It noted that “less than 10 hours after it declared the winners at the elections and made the relevant statutory returns, that is on 20th July, 2026, it released to the members and the candidates, including the Appellant herein, a comprehensive list of actual voters (in redacted from, just to shield their private data). The 1st Respondent contends that this singular act speaks to the transparency and candidness of the election process and, as well, holds it up for scrutiny.”
“The 1st Respondent admits and regrets the omission of the Appellant’s photograph on the electronic ballot used for the election,” the electoral body stated, adding however that “the omission was not deliberate, premeditated and calculated to de-market or de-register the Appellant.”
It stated that “the omission of the Appellant’s photograph on the live electronic voting portal was as a result of the coordinated cyberattacks that the voting domain deployed by the 1st Respondent was subjected to and which inherently impacted the stored data and made it difficult to effect correction given that the election had previously been suspended”
It argued “that members of the Association are educated, well informed and very discernible. It is doubtful whether any registered voter was misled by the fact of the omission of the Appellant’s photograph in the ballot.”
The electoral body then prayed the Appeals Committee “to dismiss this Petition as lacking in merit, substance or bona fide sincerity. The Petition, viewed from every prism, is frivolous, vexatious, highly misconceived and liable to be dismissed.”
The response to Ugochukwu’s petition was on all fours with the answer to Okoye’s petition.
(C) CITY LAWYER Magazine. All rights reserved. To join our Channel, click here. Click here to join our WhatsApp chatroom. Contact us at citylawyermag@gmail.com or 081-3838-0083.