ABUJA, Nigeria – Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya is leading the race to become the next president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), according to provisional results from the association’s 2026 election.
Okay News reports that data on the live dashboard of the NBA Electoral Committee (ECNBA) showed Badejo-Okusanya with 12,317 votes, representing 47.18 percent of the votes counted.
Her closest challenger, Lateef Akangbe, had 7,934 votes, while Olumuyiwa Akinboro polled 5,855 votes.
The election recorded 26,106 votes from 82,172 registered voters, representing a 31.86 percent turnout, according to the ECNBA dashboard.
Although voting opened at 7:35 a.m. on Saturday and was scheduled to close 24 hours later, the electoral committee had yet to officially declare a winner at the time of reporting.
If declared winner, Badejo-Okusanya will become only the second woman to lead the NBA, following Priscilla Olabori Kuye, who served as president from 1991 to 1992.
Election Faces Fresh Controversy
The 2026 NBA election was preceded by disputes over the electoral process, including litigation, calls for postponement and disagreements over the choice of a consensus presidential candidate.
Technical issues were also reported shortly after voting began. Akangbe filed an emergency protest with the ECNBA, demanding the immediate suspension of the election.
The former chairman of the NBA Lagos Branch alleged that the electronic voting portal had malfunctioned and that voters were receiving one-time passwords via email instead of SMS, contrary to the committee’s revised guidelines.
He further claimed that the presidential ballot displayed the photograph of only one candidate, with the images of other contenders missing.
Akangbe argued that the alleged technical and authentication failures had compromised the credibility of the election and questioned the legitimacy of any result produced under the circumstances.
