*Responds to Daudu SAN, Says Glitches Must Be Shown to Have Benefited a Particular Candidate
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Chief O.C.J. Okocha, OFR, SAN, JP, DSSRS, the 19th and Millennium President of the Nigerian Bar Association, has responded to the statement by Joseph Bodunrin Daudu, SAN, the 25th President, rejecting the outcome of the 2026 NBA national officers election, posing five questions that he says arose in his mind as he read Daudu’s intervention, invoking “the syndrome of sour grapes” as part of partisan human nature, and pleading that all parties, particularly the candidates who participated in the election, “must find a way to move on.”
Okocha’s response, addressed to “Learned Friends and Colleagues,” acknowledged that the electoral processes of the NBA “are undoubtedly in need of reform” and urged the Bar to redirect its energy toward that objective.
Okocha stated that he had “just read the foregoing statements of my Learned Brother-Silk, J.B. Daudu, SAN, the 25th President of the NBA, our once and forever great Association,” and that reading it prompted five questions.
“Did those of us who wanted to vote in the 2026 Bar Elections register to vote in the elections?” Okocha asked.
The question goes to a threshold issue in the disenfranchisement debate. Under the NBA’s electoral framework, eligibility to vote depends on completing the required registration process. A lawyer who did not complete registration cannot properly claim to have been disenfranchised by technical failures on election day, because they would not have been on the register in the first place.
“Who compiled the Register of Voters and came up with the approximate number of 80,000 lawyers who were registered to vote?” Okocha asked.
The question challenges the reliability of the 80,000 figure that has been used as the denominator in calculating the disenfranchisement rate. Daudu had stated that approximately 80,000 lawyers were registered to vote but only 26,600 were able to vote, producing a disenfranchisement figure of over 70 per cent. If the 80,000 figure is itself unreliable, or if it reflects the number of lawyers eligible to register rather than the number who actually completed registration and demonstrated an intention to vote, the 70 per cent figure would be significantly overstated.
“Can anyone state with veracity that approximately 80,000 lawyers actually sought to vote at the said elections?” Okocha asked.
The question draws a distinction between registration and participation. In every electoral system, a proportion of registered voters do not turn out on polling day for reasons unconnected to any technical failure: they are unavailable, uninterested, travelling, ill, or simply choose not to vote. Attributing the entire gap between registration and turnout to disenfranchisement assumes that every registered voter attempted to vote and was prevented, an assumption Okocha suggests has not been demonstrated.
“Can anyone state with veracity that all the lawyers now claiming that they were disenfranchised actually sought to vote at the said elections?” Okocha asked.
The question shifts the burden onto those making the disenfranchisement claim to establish that they made a genuine attempt to vote and were prevented, rather than simply asserting after the fact that they would have voted.
Okocha’s fifth question addresses the causation issue that lies at the heart of any election challenge.
“Can anyone state with veracity that the so-called glitches, cyberattacks and other problems that were alleged to have affected the said elections actually benefited any particular candidate for any particular office?” he asked.
The question invokes a principle familiar in election jurisprudence: that irregularities in an electoral process do not automatically invalidate the result unless it is shown that they substantially affected the outcome. Technical failures that disrupt voting indiscriminately, affecting supporters of all candidates equally, may render an election unsatisfactory without rendering it illegitimate, because they do not distort the relative standing of the candidates.
If the glitches and the cyberattack affected the ability of all lawyers to vote without regard to their preferences, the argument runs, then the result reflects the relative support of the candidates among those who did manage to vote, and there is no basis to conclude that a different outcome would have emerged but for the failures.
Okocha then turned to the question of partisanship, noting that Daudu had openly acknowledged supporting Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, for the presidency.
“As President Daudu has admitted, he had his own preferred candidate for the office of President. Can all the lawyers who sought to vote not be allowed the benefit of having their preferred candidates and the benefit of voting for their own preferred candidates?” Okocha asked.
The point is that the entitlement to have and support a preferred candidate cuts both ways. Daudu’s open advocacy for Akinboro was legitimate, but so too was the choice of the 12,317 lawyers who voted for Badejo-Okusanya. To reject the outcome because one’s preferred candidate lost is to deny to others the same freedom of choice one exercised oneself.
Okocha then made the observation that has drawn the most attention.
“Well, as we know too well, the syndrome of SOUR GRAPES is part and parcel of our partisan human nature,” he stated.
The reference is to Aesop’s fable of the fox who, unable to reach a bunch of grapes, declared them sour and not worth having. Applied to the current controversy, the implication is that some of the objections to the electoral process are motivated less by genuine concern for electoral integrity than by dissatisfaction with the outcome.
Okocha’s central plea was for the Bar to move forward.
“I plead that we all, particularly the candidates who participated in the said elections, must find a way to move on,” he stated.
However, he did not dismiss the substance of the reform argument.
“The electoral processes of the NBA are undoubtedly in need of reform. And so, let us all focus on that matter,” Okocha stated.
Okocha closed with a declaration intended to defuse rather than inflame: “I COME IN PEACE!”
The statement was signed by Chief O.C.J. Okocha, OFR, SAN, JP, DSSRS, the 19th and Millennium President of the Nigerian Bar Association.
The exchange between Okocha and Daudu reveals a widening division among the NBA’s most senior figures over how to respond to the disputed election.
Daudu’s position is that the election was illegitimate, that over 70 per cent of registered lawyers were disenfranchised, that the switch to a replacement server mid-election remains unexplained, that the pre-set margin allegation strikes at the heart of the leadership selection system, and that a re-election should be conducted. He has declined to congratulate any of the elected officers and warned that dissatisfied members may form a rival association.
Okocha’s position is that the disenfranchisement figures have not been substantiated, that no one has demonstrated that the technical failures benefited any particular candidate, that everyone is entitled to a preferred candidate, and that the Bar should move on and channel its energy into reforming the electoral process for the future.
Both former presidents agree on one point: that the NBA’s electoral processes require reform. Where they differ is on whether that reform should begin with the annulment of the 2026 election or with the acceptance of its outcome and a focus on the elections to come.
The President-elect, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, has committed to subjecting the electoral process to a post-election audit and to resigning immediately if it is established that she would not have won but for manipulation.
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