A presidential candidate in the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) national elections, Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe, SAN, has called for the immediate suspension and postponement of the 2026 NBA national elections, alleging that the electronic voting process suffered a “catastrophic structural and technical collapse” shortly after voting commenced.
In a strongly worded protest letter addressed to the Chairman and members of the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA), Akangbe said the election, which was scheduled to begin at 12:00 a.m. on Saturday, had become fundamentally compromised within the first two hours of voting.
According to him, widespread reports from accredited voters indicated that the official voting portal became inaccessible almost immediately after the exercise commenced, preventing thousands of lawyers from accessing the platform.
Akangbe argued that the reported plan by the ECNBA to cancel votes already cast and restart the process raised serious questions about the integrity of the election.
If the portal was inaccessible to the membership, who had access during that period? How can candidates be assured that no unauthorised votes were injected into the system?” he queried, insisting that the failure had irreparably compromised the credibility of the database.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also accused the electoral committee of breaching its own revised voting guidelines by allegedly sending One-Time Passwords (OTPs) to voters through email rather than SMS, contrary to assurances issued less than 24 hours before the election.
He described the development as a significant security concern, noting that the switch from email authentication to SMS verification had been introduced to address vulnerabilities identified in previous NBA elections.
Akangbe further alleged that the electronic ballot displayed the photograph of only one presidential candidate, while the images of the other contestants, including his own, were either omitted or failed to load.
According to him, the defect amounted to visual discrimination capable of influencing voters and undermining the fairness of the election.
“The ballot interface is the ballot paper in an electronic election. Displaying one candidate’s photograph while omitting others confers an unfair presentation advantage,” he stated.
The presidential hopeful maintained that the reported defects cast doubt on the integrity of the platform despite assurances that it had undergone comprehensive testing, mock voting exercises and security audits before deployment.
Consequently, Akangbe demanded the immediate suspension of the election, preservation of all voting data and system logs, and the commissioning of an independent technical audit of the voting platform, authentication system and ballot interface before any resumption of the electoral process.
He also called on the ECNBA to provide a written explanation to NBA members on the circumstances that led to the portal failure, the alleged breach of the revised authentication protocol and the defective ballot interface.
Akangbe urged the committee to postpone the election to a later date within the tenure of the current NBA administration to allow sufficient time to address the identified deficiencies and restore confidence in the electoral process.
Warning against proceeding with the election under the prevailing circumstances, he said any outcome from what he described as a compromised process would face legitimacy challenges and could plunge the Association into another round of litigation and internal crisis.
The protest letter was copied to the NBA President, the General Secretary, all presidential candidates, the Chairman of the Body of Benchers, past NBA presidents and the Attorney-General of the Federation.
