Olumide Akpata has been elected president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) despite being the only non-senior advocate of Nigeria among the contestants.
Chairman of the NBA Electoral Committee Taiwo Taiwo (SAN) announced the results early Friday.
Akpata won the election with over 50 percent of the total votes cast.
His rivals for the office of NBA president were Dele Adesina (SAN) and Babatunde Ajibade (SAN).
Other winners are John Martin for NBA first Vice President, Second Vice President Adeyemo Kazeem, General Secretary Joyce Oduah, Assistant Secretary Uchenna Nwadialo, Welfare Secretary Olukunle Edun, Publicity Secretary Rapulu Nduka and Assistant Publicity Secretary Naza Afam.
Mr Akpata is a senior partner and head of the Corporate and Commercial Practice Group at Templars Law Firm.
One of his challengers, Adesina has called for the cancellation of the exercise, describing it as “a sham”.
Adesina said in a petition to the NBA Electoral Committee chairman that the process was marred by over-voting, disenfranchisement of some eligible voters and non-compliance with the provisions of the NBA Constitution.
He claimed that the verified voters’ list was only published about five hours to the commencement of voting contrary to the provision of the NBA constitution (2015), as amended.
According to him, the constitution provided that the list be released not later than 28 days before the election.
