Human rights lawyer and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, has faulted calls for the mandatory use of National Identification Number for the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association election, describing the proposal as a “red herring.”
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In a post on X titled “Concerning NIN & #NBADecides2026,” Odinkalu accused Egbe Amofin O’odua of using the NIN debate as part of what he described as a campaign to impose an “ethno-tribal veto” on the NBA electoral process.
He also criticised the report associated with Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, and Chief Anthony Odogiyan, saying it elevated the NIN proposal into what he called an “article of faith” without properly examining its legality, practicality and technical feasibility.
According to Odinkalu, the report claimed that enrolment numbers assigned to lawyers by the Supreme Court are “not security numbers,” but failed to define what a security number means or where such a concept was derived from.
He argued that by the same reasoning, even the Bank Verification Number could fail the report’s subjective standard of a “security number.”
Odinkalu said the standard being applied in the report appeared to be known only to its authors.
He further faulted the assumption that the NBA could administer the data integration process required to link lawyers’ details with NIN and complete such a process before the end of August 2026.
According to him, the assumption exposed what he described as the outdated thinking behind the recommendation.
He said, “This is possibly the most lazy and illiterate — I do not want to say dishonest — recommendations of that report.”
Odinkalu also said the authors of the report did not consult either the National Identity Management Commission, which administers the NIN, or the Supreme Court, which is the custodian of the Roll of Legal Practitioners in Nigeria.
He maintained that such consultation was necessary before making recommendations on the feasibility of using NIN for NBA elections.
The legal scholar explained that fewer than 200,000 persons have been enrolled as lawyers in Nigeria’s history, and that each lawyer’s enrolment number is assigned by the Supreme Court.
He questioned the logic of treating the Supreme Court enrolment number as less secure than the NIN, which he said is available to hundreds of millions of Nigerians and remains “notoriously porous.”
Odinkalu stressed that the NIN is administered exclusively by NIMC and that the Commission does not share or outsource that responsibility.
He said the NBA, for purposes of its elections, relies on the Roll and records maintained by the Supreme Court.
According to him, the NIN is currently not a data field in the information held by the Supreme Court on lawyers in Nigeria.
He said introducing NIN into the electoral process would first require a change at source by adding NIN as a new data field to the Supreme Court’s Roll of Legal Practitioners.
Odinkalu argued that such a step is outside the competence of the NBA.
He said it was unlikely that the Supreme Court would treat such a change as an election matter merely to satisfy the demands of Olanipekun, Odogiyan, Egbe Amofin O’odua or the Attorney-General of the Federation, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN.
He listed several steps that would be required before NIN could be integrated into lawyers’ data for election purposes.
According to him, the process would first require a decision by the Supreme Court Registry as custodian of the Roll.
Thereafter, he said, there would need to be bureaucratic integration between NIMC and the Supreme Court.
He added that because many lawyers on the Roll had died before or after the introduction of NIN, detailed due diligence would be required beyond merely designing a new data field.
Odinkalu said all these steps would have to precede any integration of NIN into the data of lawyers eligible to vote in NBA elections.
He further stated that such data integration would require careful vetting, would take time and could not be outsourced by NIMC.
He criticised the report for allegedly treating the process as something that could be achieved instantly.
“These various steps are what the Olanipekun-Odogiyan report flippantly claims will be achieved at the snap of an imaginary finger,” he said.
Odinkalu concluded that the design behind the push was clear, alleging that those behind it were prepared to “crash the association” if they did not get their way.
“The design is clear: if they do not get their way, they will crash the association,” he said.
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