The first runner-up in the disputed Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) presidential election, Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe (SAN), has called for the election to be set aside and a fresh poll conducted, insisting that only an independent forensic audit of the electronic voting system can restore confidence in the process….
The first runner-up in the disputed Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) presidential election, Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe (SAN), has called for the election to be set aside and a fresh poll conducted, insisting that only an independent forensic audit of the electronic voting system can restore confidence in the process.
Speaking on Beyond the Headlines with Nifemi Oguntoye on TVC, Akangbe challenged the position of president-elect Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya (SAN) that the election was free and fair, arguing that the integrity of the process could not be verified without access to the voting platform’s backend records.
“Open the books, open the logs,” Akangbe said. “I’m not saying I’m right and I’m not saying she’s right. Let there be an independent audit. If the audit shows the election was free, fair and credible, everybody will shake hands and support her.”
Akangbe said his petition before the NBA Election Appeal Committee seeks access to system logs, algorithms and audit trails, arguing that lawyers should rely on evidence rather than speculation.
He questioned the migration to a new voting platform after the original electronic portal reportedly failed within minutes of voting commencing, saying the replacement system was developed in about four hours without any publicly known stress testing or independent verification.
“The advertised portal went down within 10 minutes. We were told another portal was created within four hours. Was there any test run? Who saw the algorithm? Who verified the programme?” he asked.
Akangbe alleged that voting patterns observed by individuals monitoring the election suggested irregularities, claiming votes continued to accumulate for one candidate while the voting server was reportedly experiencing outages.
However, he acknowledged that those observations could only be confirmed through an examination of the platform’s backend records.
He criticised what he described as the NBA’s longstanding refusal to subject its electronic elections to independent post-election audits.
“We’ve had electronic voting since 2016 and there has never been a post-election audit. If there’s nothing to hide, why resist an audit?” he said.
Akangbe said he had consistently advocated engaging internationally recognised technology providers and one of the “Big Four” accounting firms to oversee and audit the NBA’s electronic elections.
He maintained that the dispute was not about personal ambition but about protecting the credibility of an association that regularly demands transparency and accountability from public institutions.
“The bar is one. We want accountability and justice. As the moral conscience of the nation, the NBA must be able to demonstrate that its own elections are credible.”
The NBA Election Appeal Committee is expected to consider petitions challenging the outcome of the election.
