Corporate and Commercial lawyer, Olumide Akpata Esq., has emerged winner of the Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) 2020 national elections, after defeating two other contestants who are Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs). This victorious win makes him the NBA’s first non-SAN President in years.
Akpata won the election with a total of 9,891 votes of the total 18,256 ballots cast, while his closest rival, Babatunde Ajibade SAN polled 4,328 votes and Dele Adesina SAN polled 3,982 votes.
The election commenced at exactly 11 am on Wednesday, July 29, and ended at 11 pm on Thursday, July 30. It was a virtual voting process where registered members of the association logged into the National Officers Election webpage with their Supreme court numbers and cast their votes.
Right from Wednesday night when the elections started, Akpata maintained the lead with more than 50% of the votes at every quarter-hourly update, and he maintained the lead up to the close of the election at 11pm on Thursday.
About 29,636 eligible voters were registered, and the election committee sent the voting link to the registered members via emails and sms.
Announcing the winner at 12:50am on Friday, Chairman of the Electoral Committee of the NBA, Tawo Tawo SAN 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.”
This result represents a sudden change in the order, as Akpata is now the first non-SAN to lead the Nigerian Bar Association in years. Feedback from members of the NBA indicates that there has been a long-standing hunger for a paradigm shift. And now it appears many of the association’s members have a good reason to be excited.
An early victory tweet read, “Dear Young Lawyers, Our Champions League Trophy is finally coming home. Lets continue to score (vote) and keep a clean sheet (defend) till 90+4′ #OluForAll“.
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