Mrs. Ozioma Izuora is a former Vice-Chairperson of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Abuja Branch and a member of the J-K Gadzama (SAN) campaign organisation for the position of the national president of the NBA in the recently held Bar elections. In this interview with AMEH EJEKWONYILO, Mrs. Izuora said the elections were a complete sham and called for fresh polls. Could you give us an overview of the recently held NBA elections? NBA election before this time was delegate election whereby Bar branches were told how many delegates to produce and they produced those delegates. And those delegates went on behalf of the branches to choose leaders for the running of the NBA. Unfortunately, this came with a lot of problems. A lot of money was spent in wooing delegates and it became a cash and carry matter. So, people started looking at that system and saying, ?how do make elections cheaper and a true reflection of the wishes of the people?? Then electronic voting (e-voting) was put in the new constitution as a way of changing the manner of voting, and now let us try universal suffrage, whereby you would have one lawyer, one vote. This implied that every lawyer who paid Bar practice fee and branch dues as of 31 March of every year became eligible to vote. Now, the idea of e-voting meant that you punched in with a dedicated number, it counted. So, everybody was looking forward to this very enthusiastically. First of all, the NBA President, Mr. Augustine Alegeh (SAN) set up a committee, Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association ECNBA to conduct the election. Nobody knows what the criteria for the membership of the election committee was; he just named them. Then the committee was to look at the NBA constitution and follow the procedures to conduct the election. What are the constitutional provisions as regard the Bar elections? To begin with, the constitution does say that the voters? list for the election should be ready 28 days before the election, that means, all those eligible should be ascertainable at the portal, this did not happen. At National Executive Committee in Benin, the list was promised but before it came out, it was so long after that. They didn?t conform to that 28 days prescription. For instance, a branch like Abuja sent not less than 300 names as par those who qualified by actually paying their Bar practice fee and branch dues. But when the first list came, it only had about 1800 names out of the about 3000 that were qualified. So many branches were crying. What was your mode of the complaint to the NBA leadership? J-K Gadzama (SAN) wrote the NBA to say the time you have given to the end of the exercise was not realistic, but there was no response and that is characteristic of this administration of the Alegeh-led NBA. But did you raise this issue with him (Alegeh)? We asked him that if the elections are going on, will the people be able to see how the elections are happening? He responded: ?no there will be no need for it. Only the ECNBA Chairman and the organizers.? Then we got our own consultant, that was when we discovered that what Alegeh and the ECNBA had brought to us was not e-voting but Internet voting. The I-voting is like what is used in voting for idols in the entertainment industry competition. It was not credible. How do you say this will work? Even on the afternoon of the second day of the election, July 31, we also sent in a letter because we wanted to have like ten monitors so that people can go eight hour shift and monitor what was happening. But they said no, only two people would be taken. So, only two people would stay there 48 hours? We sent in people there, the people reported to us that they were watching television. Our agents could only see people who just voted, they could not see the votes counting for the candidates, and they could not see candidates? tally increasing. If they (ECNBA) wanted transparency, there is no reason why people should not be watching this at home. I can vote at home, why can?t I watch it at home? And then we sent people there, then you keep them in the dark. They picked some big ?fishes? who would disturb them and they sorted them and those people could accredit and vote. Far-flung branches were calling with their names massively that some of them and their chairmen could not vote because they were not accredited. On the morning of the elections, 200 names went into Abuja list and we were told that Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) brought a list with the evidence of payment and they stocked it in long after updating. It unconstitutional and criminal; it?s a fraud. What is your assessment of the just concluded elections and the previous ones of the NBA? I think this became another version of the delegate election. After the close of the voting portal, we could not still see the total votes cast. Alegeh, Mozia and the Law Pavillion person, went into a closed door meeting from 12 midnight to 1:20 am and came to read the results. So, everything about this election was teleguided and managed to produce a certain result. Source: authorityngr ]]>