The Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association has declared Olumide Akpata winner of the NBA presidential poll which held electronically between 11pm on Wednesday and 11pm on Thursday.
The chairman of the ECNBA, Mr. Tawo Tawo who announced the results early Friday morning at the end of voting said Akpata polled a total of 9,891 votes (54.3 per cent) to defeat Mr. Julius Oladele Adeshina and Dr. Babatunde Ajibade who polled 3,982 and 4,328 votes respectively.
Both Adeshina and Ajibade are senior advocates.
Although a total of 29,636 lawyers were accredited to vote in the e-election, only 18,256 succeeded in casting their ballots.
Declaring Apata winner, Tawo said: “I, Tawo Tawo, the chairman, Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA), as the electoral officer for the 2020 National Officers’ Election, hereby declare Akpata Olumide Anthony, having scored the highest number of votes cast and satisfied the provisions of the constitution of the NBA 2015 (as amended), the winner of the election into the office of the President of the Nigerian Bar Association.”
In his acceptance speech, Akpata thanked his supporters and assured them that by the grace of God, transformational leadership would be witnessed in his administration.
“In two years from now, we would look back to this day with gratitude. We would say thank God that Olu became President. We would never regret this day. We would transform our association and the Bar will work for all,” he said.
However, ThankGod Enahoro who speaking for Ajibade said he would communicate to his principal on way forward and appropriate scrutiny.
It would be recalled that Adesina had earlier described the association’s national officers’ election as a sham and called on the electoral committee to cancel it.
The call was contained in his petition which he personally signed and addressed to the electoral committee chairman on Thursday.
He alleged in the petition that the voter register used for the election contained “grave errors” which violated the provisions of the NBA constitution.
“I call on you Mr. Chairman and members of the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association to cancel this sham Election.
“It is needless to say that if the process is bad, the product cannot be good. Thank you,” he stated.
