An Abuja-based lawyer, Marx Ikongbeh, has raised fresh questions over the conduct of the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association National Elections, following the publication of the list of members who voted by the Electoral Committee of the NBA.
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Ikongbeh commended the ECNBA for publishing the register of voters who participated in the election but said his review of the document revealed what he described as “interesting” and “curious” issues requiring further explanation.
According to him, it appeared from the published list that none of the presidential candidates voted in the election.
He noted that one of the presidential candidates, Mr. Lateef Akangbe, SAN, had publicly stated that he wanted to vote but was disenfranchised, while another candidate, Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, had criticised the election process.
Ikongbeh, however, said he was particularly curious about the name of the declared winner, Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, which he claimed he could not find after searching the Lagos Branch list containing 3,470 entries.
“But I’m curious about the declared winner. I checked the Lagos list consisting of 3,470 entries and used the find function in my PDF reader and it couldn’t locate her name on the list,” he said.
He queried why a candidate would allegedly not vote in her own election and yet not complain about disenfranchisement.
“Why didn’t she vote for herself at her own election? Is it perhaps because she was also disenfranchised but wouldn’t want to talk about it to avoid exposing the lapses of the election? Or was she so sure of victory that she didn’t need to vote for herself?” he asked.
Ikongbeh said it was strange that, in an election, even the candidates themselves appeared not to have voted, yet the legitimacy of the process was being maintained.
He also raised concerns over branch classifications in the published list, saying he noticed two separate sheets for NBA Nyanya Branch and NBA Nyanya-Karu Branch.
According to him, one sheet listed NBA Nyanya Branch with 33 entries, while another listed NBA Nyanya-Karu Branch with 111 entries.
He said this was strange because, to his knowledge, there is only NBA Nyanya-Karu Branch.
Ikongbeh further said he found another sheet titled “Unknown Branch” with eight entries and a query indicating that it was flagged for verification.
While describing the release of some election data by ECNBA as commendable, he said the publication fell short of the standard expected for a technical election of that nature.
According to him, a proper technical election should have had an agreed post-election audit process involving the candidates’ technical consultants and the service provider before the election.
He said such an audit should examine the integrity of the source data, joint testing of the voting system, and details of all access to the voting backend throughout the election period.
Ikongbeh added that the audit should also provide voting data showing metrics such as device used, IP address, anonymised voter data, ballot audit logs, voting patterns and other analytics capable of detecting possible manipulation.
“What is expected for a technical election of this nature is to agree a detailed post-election audit process with the candidates’ technical consultants and the service provider long before the elections and stick to that,” he said.
He maintained that the ECNBA still had “a long way to go” in meeting the level of transparency required for such an election.
Ikongbeh concluded by saying he remained interested in understanding why a candidate would allegedly not vote in her own election and yet fail to complain about disenfranchisement.
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