‘2026 NBA Elections: Challenges mount as 3 SANs eye presidential seat’
By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA — With barely 48 hours to go, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the umbrella body for legal practitioners, still stands at a crossroads amid internal wrangling that threatens the smooth conduct of its national elections.
Section 10(1) of the NBA Constitution 2015 (as amended in 2025) establishes the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA) as an independent body responsible for conducting elections into national offices of the Association and for NBA representatives to the General Council of the Bar.
The incumbent President of the Association, Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, had activated the process for selecting the next leadership.
At the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Edo State on November 20, 2025, a five-member ECNBA was approved to conduct the 2026 elections.
While a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr. Aham Ejelam, was appointed Chairman to superintend the ECNBA, Ibrahim Aliyu Nasarawa was approved to serve as Secretary.
The other members of the committee are Muhammad M. Nuhu, Uju Okafor, and Ume Maduka.
The Ejelam-led ECNBA, on June 18, released a detailed list of 35 candidates cleared to contest for various national offices in the Association.
Three Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) were cleared to vie for the NBA presidency, two candidates for 1st Vice-President, one candidate for 3rd Vice-President, and five lawyers will contest the General Secretary position.
Likewise, three candidates got the nod to vie for Assistant General Secretary, three for Welfare Secretary, and three for Assistant Publicity Secretary, while the positions of Treasurer and Publicity Secretary each had sole candidates.
Among those seeking election as representatives of the General Council of the Bar for the various zones, five lawyers were cleared to contest the Eastern Zone election, two for the Western Zone, while five will contest to represent the Northern Zone.
As acknowledged by the ECNBA, the presidential aspirants are: Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, of the Abuja Branch, called to the Bar in 1991; Ms. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okunsanya, SAN (Lagos Branch, 2002), the only female candidate in recent times; and Mr. Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe, SAN (Lagos Branch, 2003).
The presidency is zoned to the Western axis for the 2026 elections.
Lagos, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ekiti, Edo, and Delta States constitute the Western Zone of the NBA.
The NBA Constitution establishes a universal suffrage system conducted through electronic voting, with the electorate comprising lawyers who have paid their practising fees and branch dues.
However, with the process already under way, the Association found itself embroiled in regional politics that threw up allegations of bias against the current national leadership of the body.
At the root of the misgivings was a reported consensus deal that precipitated legal actions threatening the conduct of the elections.
The Association had embraced a power-rotation formula to address instability, hegemony, marginalisation, and domination by one segment or region over others.
The zoning arrangement was intended to promote fairness in NBA leadership allocation and foster political stability within the organisation.
A perceived plot to breach a deal that reportedly saw the emergence of a consensus presidential candidate for the Western Bar led the Incorporated Trustees of Egbe Amofin O’odua to take the NBA to court.
Specifically, Egbe Amofin O’odua, an association of lawyers of Yoruba extraction, is insisting the NBA must adopt one of the presidential aspirants, Aare Akinboro, SAN, as the sole candidate for the election, having declared him its consensus candidate for the Western Zone — whose turn it is to produce the next NBA President.
Following the suit marked I/205/2026, Justice Y. S. Adekunle of the Oyo State High Court, on February 24, granted an interim injunction barring the NBA from recognising or processing nominations outside the Yoruba lawyers’ consensus candidate arrangement for the presidency.
Likewise, Justice G. A. Opayinka of the same court issued an interim injunction that initially halted all steps toward conducting the 2026 NBA elections.
The suit marked I/221/2026 was filed by four aggrieved lawyers: Ibrahim Lawal, Raymond Oki, Omotan Olusola Ogunmodede, and Chief Gabriel Ojo Adekunle Ijalana.
They sought to restrain the NBA leadership and ECNBA members from parading themselves as officials or taking any further action toward the election, pending the hearing of their motion on notice for an interlocutory injunction.
The defendants in the matter included NBA President, Osigwe, SAN; the Incorporated Trustees of the NBA; the Body of Benchers; the Attorney-General of the Federation (as Chairman of the General Council of the Bar); and several senior lawyers.
Justice Opayinka’s order restrained the NBA President and other defendants from constituting, supervising, or interfering in any way with the ECNBA or the election process.
While the NBA struggled to vacate the restraining orders, a reported advisory from the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, calling for the disbandment of the electoral committee and postponement of the polls further widened the controversy.
The AGF equally demanded the termination of the appointment of the service provider engaged to conduct the electronic voting.
Fagbemi, SAN, had reportedly criticised the award of the contract to a sole proprietor and called for the appointment of a new service provider.
In the interim, he suggested setting up a caretaker committee to conduct the elections, as well as incorporating NIN into the data of lawyers who will vote in the election.
Besides, he asked for the “recalibration” of the NBA Constitution to remove the universal suffrage system.
Expectedly, the AGF’s position irked the NBA leadership, which maintained that only the National Executive Council of the Association could direct the postponement of the election fixed for Saturday.
In a message he personally signed, the NBA President, Osigwe, SAN, argued that the AGF lacked the powers to issue such a directive, which he said was “entirely unconstitutional, ultra vires.”
According to him, the action smacked of an attempt to bring the NBA, which is an autonomous body, under the control of the office of the AGF.
Osigwe, SAN, insisted the AGF’s directives were not different from the reliefs sought in the two Egbe Amofin cases pending at the High Court of Oyo State.
More so, the NBA President noted that the electoral committee, after one of the presidential candidates, Akinboro, SAN, raised the issue of the use of NIN in the electoral process, had checked the risk assessment and concluded that any modification of the current platform configuration would truncate the election, particularly as the NIMC platform may not be able to accommodate the surge in authentication requests during the period of the poll.
Earlier, both Akinboro and Akangbe wrote a formal letter to the Board of Trustees of the NBA, demanding Osigwe’s resignation over what they described as an open admission of bias and persistent partisan conduct.
The letter, dated February 15, was addressed to the Chairman of the NBA BoT and copied to the Chairman of the Body of Benchers, the NBA President himself, all past presidents of the Association, and all members of the NEC.
The two aspirants anchored their demands on a statement they said the incumbent NBA President, Osigwe, SAN, made at the NEC meeting of the Association, held in Maiduguri, Borno State, on February 5.
According to them, Osigwe, SAN, had responded to concerns raised by another senior lawyer, Mr. Adetunji Osho, SAN, regarding the open distribution of campaign materials at the NEC meeting by declaring that he “cannot be neutral” because he has a voting right.
They said he went on to defend his right to support any candidate of his choice and sought to justify his position by analogy to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointing an INEC Chairman while intending to contest the 2027 presidential election.
Therefore, the duo implored the BoT to intervene urgently and decisively, while making four specific demands.
The petitioners also called for the immediate reconstitution of the ECNBA, with clear safeguards to guarantee independence, transparency, and neutrality.
In addition, the two candidates demanded the establishment of an independent election oversight mechanism, free from the influence of the NBA President or any partisan interests.
These developments have continued to polarise the Bar, with various groups pitching their tents where their interest lies.
Egbe Amofin O’odua based its decision to throw its weight behind Akinboro, SAN, on a resolution the organisation reached in 2019.
The group said it resolved to give preference to the Oyo/Osun axis for the 2026 NBA presidency, particularly Osun State, which has never produced an NBA President.
Its special committee, led by its Vice-Chairperson, Mrs. Toyin Bashorun, SAN, said it assessed all aspirants from the South-West who had declared interest in the NBA presidency.
The intervention of Egbe Amofin O’odua led to the withdrawal of another female aspirant, Prof. Foluke Dada-Lawanson, from the presidential race.
Meanwhile, another group of legal practitioners under the aegis of Young Lawyers for Democracy rejected the position of Egbe Amofin O’odua and sought the withdrawal of the suit seeking to compel the NBA to recognise only Akinboro, SAN, for the office of President in the impending election.
Despite the multilayered disputations, all the candidates have continued to canvass for votes from all branches of the NBA across the country.
Akinboro, SAN, has held various positions in the Association, including Secretary of the Abuja Branch of the NBA from 2002 to 2004, Chairman of the NBA Abuja Branch (2006–2008), and General Secretary of the NBA (2010–2012).
Should he emerge victorious at the poll, his administration will focus on an eight-point agenda encapsulated in the 3Rs — Rebuilding the Bar, Repositioning the Bar, and Restoring the Bar.
Likewise, Akangbe, SAN, who was Chairman of the Lagos Branch of the NBA from July 2019 to August 2021 and has been Chairman of the Finance Committee of the NBA since March 2023, is running his campaign on the Elevate The Bar mantra, which promises to transform the Association into “a modern NBA that works for every lawyer.”
Akangbe said his administration would focus on strengthening professional standards, advancing institutional development, and promoting the welfare of lawyers.
The only female presidential candidate, Badejo-Okunsanya, SAN, who has also served the Association in various capacities starting from the post of Assistant Secretary of the NBA Lagos Branch (the Premier Bar) in 2005, is anchoring her campaign on five pillars: Earn Better, Spend Less to Practise, Live Better, Be Protected, and Belong to a Bar That Works.
“I want to restore economic dignity to lawyers, create opportunities, and build a Bar that works — where lawyers can earn better, live better, and practise better,” her manifesto further read.
As the clock ticks toward Saturday, the question on the minds of over 140,000 lawyers on its roll, across 128 active branches spanning Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), remains the same: the NBA election — to be or not to be?
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