The Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA) has published the Preliminary Voters List for the 2026 NBA General Elections, giving members a verification window from May 19 to May 27, 2026, to confirm their details on the register ahead of the elections scheduled for July 20, 2026.
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However, the notice has raised fresh questions among lawyers about the ECNBA’s IT arrangements after members observed that the committee directed correction requests to an email address support@ecnba.zohodesk.com hosted on the Zoho Desk platform, a third-party customer support ticketing system, at a time when the ECNBA has only just shortlisted six IT companies for the management of the election’s digital platform and has not yet selected a final provider.
The Voters List
In a notice dated May 19, 2026, and signed by ECNBA Chairman Aham Ejelam, SAN, and Secretary Aliyu Nassarawa, Esq., the committee stated that the Preliminary Voters List had been published in compliance with the NBA Constitution 2015 (as amended in 2025).
The list is accessible on the ECNBA website at www.ecnba.org.ng, with members able to click “Voter List” on the navigation menu or access it directly at www.ecnba.org.ng/pages/voters.php. Members were advised to verify their names and details immediately.
“Members are reminded that authentication tokens for voting will be transmitted to contact details on the voter database. It is in every member’s interest to ensure their details are accurately captured before the verification window closes,” the notice stated.
Members who identify discrepancies in their records were directed to submit correction requests to support@ecnba.zohodesk.com, with the ECNBA promising that all requests would be carefully reviewed and resolved within 24 hours. Members were asked to include their Supreme Court Number (SCN), full name as enrolled at the Supreme Court, current GSM number, and current email address in their correction submissions.
Members React
Following the publication of the voters list, some excited lawyers who were able to locate their names on the register began displaying proof of their eligibility on social media platforms, celebrating their inclusion in the voter database ahead of the closely watched elections.
However, a more critical set of reactions focused on the email address to which correction requests were directed support@ecnba.zohodesk.com with some lawyers expressing confusion about the platform and others raising pointed questions about its implications for the ECNBA’s IT procurement process.
What Is Zoho Desk?
TheNigeriaLawyer can confirm that zohodesk.com is the domain for Zoho Desk, a customer support and help desk platform developed by Zoho Corporation, a technology company with its United States headquarters in Pleasanton, California, and its international headquarters in Chennai, India.
Zoho Desk is a legitimate and widely used platform that allows businesses and organisations to manage customer service through tickets, email support, live chat, mobile apps, knowledge bases, and automation. Organisations that subscribe to the service receive their own branded subdomain in this case, ecnba.zohodesk.com through which they manage support requests and communications.
The platform is not a scam in itself. A zohodesk.com subdomain simply means that an organisation has set up a customer support portal on Zoho’s infrastructure. The legitimacy of any specific portal depends on the organisation behind it. In this case, the ECNBA has evidently set up a support portal on Zoho Desk to handle voter list correction requests from NBA members.
The Question Lawyers Are Asking
The critical question being raised by lawyers is not whether Zoho Desk is a legitimate platform it clearly is but rather who set it up for the ECNBA, when it was set up, and what its relationship is to the six IT companies that the ECNBA shortlisted just one day earlier, on May 18, 2026, for the management of the election’s digital infrastructure.
The six shortlisted companies announced by the ECNBA on May 18 are: Lumix Solutions Ltd; Twinslight Technologies Ltd; Top-Tech I.T Resources Nigeria Limited; Mikrodigital Connect; Thanelinc Nigeria Limited; and Cinfores Limited.
The ECNBA’s notice accompanying the shortlist stated that these six companies would be “subjected to the next stage of selection process which will involve interviews by necessary stakeholders” before a final decision is made on which company to engage.
Yet barely 24 hours after that announcement, the ECNBA published the voters list and directed members to a Zoho Desk support portal raising the obvious question: if the ECNBA has not yet selected an IT company to manage the election platform, who is already managing the ECNBA’s digital infrastructure, including the website, the voters list database, and the Zoho Desk support portal?
The concern among lawyers is that an IT company may already be engaged and operational behind the scenes, rendering the shortlisting and interview process a mere formality designed to create an appearance of competitive procurement while the actual work is already being done by a predetermined provider.
Is Zoho Desk Connected to Any Shortlisted Company?
Several lawyers have called for an investigation into whether the Zoho Desk portal and the broader ECNBA website infrastructure at ecnba.org.ng is being managed by any of the six shortlisted companies or their affiliates. As one lawyer noted: “The company is not listed on the shortlisted company list. But we need to verify if it is an affiliate of any of the companies shortlisted. Who built the ECNBA website? Who maintains it? Who set up the Zoho Desk portal? These are questions that must be answered.”
The concern is not speculative. In past NBA elections, allegations have been raised about the relationship between electoral committees and the IT companies engaged to manage voting platforms, with critics alleging that control over the digital infrastructure effectively gives whoever manages it the ability to influence election outcomes.
If the Zoho Desk portal and by extension the ECNBA’s entire digital operation is being managed by a company that is also on the shortlist of firms competing for the main election platform contract, it would raise serious conflict-of-interest concerns. Equally, if the digital operations are being managed by a company that is not on the shortlist at all, it would raise questions about why that company was not required to go through the competitive procurement process.
Beyond the IT questions, the practical significance of the voters list publication cannot be understated. The ECNBA has stated that authentication tokens for voting on July 20 will be transmitted to the contact details on the voter database. This means that any lawyer whose phone number or email address is incorrectly captured or missing entirely will not receive their voting token and will effectively be disenfranchised.
The verification window runs from May 19 to May 27, 2026, giving members just eight days to check their details and submit corrections. The ECNBA’s promise to resolve correction requests within 24 hours will be tested if a large number of lawyers discover discrepancies simultaneously.
The notice originally stated the verification window closes on May 27, while a separate report indicated a deadline of June 1, 2026. Members are advised to verify their details as early as possible to avoid last-minute complications.
The publication of the voters list is the latest step in an increasingly contentious journey towards the 2026 NBA National Elections. The ECNBA is already the subject of a formal petition filed before the NBA Board of Trustees by Tosan Barbara Onwubiko, Esq., alleging constitutional breaches in the candidate qualification process, including the unlawful inclusion of a candidate who did not comply with mandatory requirements, the concealment of names of nominators and disqualified aspirants, and a pattern of irregularities linked to the ECNBA Secretary, Aliyu Nassarawa.
The shortlisting of six IT companies on May 18 itself drew criticism from lawyers who questioned when the tender was publicly advertised, how the 19 bidding firms became aware of the opportunity, and why the procurement was conducted without adequate notice to members of the Bar. Some lawyers have called for a boycott of the July 20 election if transparency concerns are not addressed.
The addition of the Zoho Desk question to the growing list of concerns about the ECNBA’s operations further complicates the committee’s task of building public confidence in its ability to deliver a credible election.
Neither the ECNBA, any of the six shortlisted IT companies, nor any representative of Zoho Corporation has publicly responded to the questions raised by lawyers as at the time of this report.
Members of the NBA are urged to verify their details on the voters list at www.ecnba.org.ng before the verification window closes.
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