Some lawyers who say they have been unable to vote in the ongoing 2026 Nigerian Bar Association National Elections have criticised human rights lawyer and activist, Deji Adeyanju, over his public commendation of the electronic voting process.
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Adeyanju had, after casting his vote, urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to learn from the NBA election, saying the process showed that secure electronic voting could work in Nigeria.
He praised the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association for what he described as a smooth, transparent and efficient process, stating that registration, verification and voting took him less than two minutes.
According to him, the use of lawyers’ Supreme Court enrolment numbers and One-Time Passwords provided a secure verification system.
“The NBA election has shown that secure electronic voting is achievable with the right systems. INEC should closely observe this process and learn from it,” Adeyanju said.
However, the comment did not go down well with some lawyers who said they had yet to vote due to OTP-related problems and other technical challenges on the voting platform.
Reacting on social media, some lawyers questioned why Adeyanju was already commending the process when a large percentage of eligible voters had still not voted.
According to an updated live dashboard sighted by TheNigeriaLawyer, 20,786 voters out of 82,164 registered voters had voted as of 4:51:52 p.m. WAT on Saturday, July 18, 2026, representing 25.30 per cent turnout.
This means 61,378 voters, representing 74.70 per cent of registered voters, had yet to vote at the time of the update. The dashboard also showed that the last vote was recorded at 11:51:47 a.m. WAT, while stating that live updates are refreshed every 10 seconds.
Some lawyers argued that while Adeyanju may have had a smooth experience, his personal experience should not be used to describe the entire election as successful when several voters were still complaining of delayed OTPs, invalid authentication sessions and inability to access the portal.
Others questioned the timing of his comment, saying it was premature to urge INEC to adopt the NBA model before the election had concluded and before complaints from affected voters were resolved.
A number of reactions also referenced Adeyanju’s recent entry into the legal profession, noting that he was called to the Nigerian Bar on March 6, 2024, and asking whether the ongoing election was his first NBA national election as a lawyer.
One lawyer asked why he was “already hailing” the process when many senior and young lawyers alike were still struggling to vote, while another queried whether a process could be described as transparent when voters were still publicly complaining of authentication and OTP issues.
The criticisms come amid continuing concerns over the ECNBA’s handling of the election, which was initially scheduled to commence at 12:00 a.m. WAT, but was delayed after the Committee announced an alleged coordinated cyberattack on the e-voting platform.
Voting later commenced at 7:35 a.m. WAT after the ECNBA migrated the portal to a new domain.
TheNigeriaLawyer reports that while some lawyers have described their voting experience as seamless, others insist that the ECNBA must address unresolved complaints before the process can be described as credible, transparent or worthy of adoption by INEC.
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