The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has elected Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), as its next president after she polled the most votes when voting officially ended Sunday morning.
Mrs Badejo-Okusanya, the only female among the three presidential candidates, polled 12,317 votes to emerge the winner of the election which was held through electronic voting for 24 hours. from 7:35 a.m. on Saturday to 7:34 a.m. on Sunday.
Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe, SAN, secured 7,934 votes (30.39 per cent) to come second and Olumuyiwa Akinboro, another SAN, polled 5,855 votes (22.43 per cent) to take the third position.
The live results dashboard updated every 10 seconds throughout the voting period.
PREMIUM TIMES monitored the dashboard for more than an hour after voting was scheduled to end at 7:34 a.m., to confirm the final tally.
The final results showed that the total votes cast across 13 national officers elections was 26,184, representing 31.86 per cent voter turnout of the total 82,172 registered voters.
However, the ECNBA has yet to officially announce the results.
When inaugurated, Mrs Badejo-Okusanya will be the 33rd president of the NBA.
She will be the second woman to lead the Nigerian Bar in its 66-year-old history, following Priscilla Kuye, who emerged as the first president of the association of Nigerian lawyers in 1991 and held the position until 1992.
The NBA will inaugurate its new national officers who emerged from Saturday’s election during its Annual General Conference scheduled for August 21 and 28 August in Port Harcourt Rivers State. The outgoing president, Afam Osigwe, and his co-executives are expected to hand over to the new leadership during the conference.
Controversies, low voter turnout
Characterised by controversies leading up to Saturday morning’s opening of voting, the election recorded a low turnout of 26,184 compared to the over 40,000 who voted in the last 2024 election.
Voting, which was scheduled to commence at 12 a.m. on Saturday, did not commence until 7.35 a.m., the latest twist in the controversies that characterised the build-up to the election.
According to the ECNBA, the delay was caused by a “deliberate, coordinated and sustained cyberattack” that the voting platform suffered from external actors seeking to disrupt the election.
The election process has been fiercely criticised for a lack of transparency, a perennial issue that has dogged every election cycle since the NBA adopted electronic voting in 2016.
Many called for the postponement of the election, citing issues with the constitution of the ECNBA (the body that oversaw the poll) and the credibility of the voter register.
The intervention by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, failed to resolve the issues and uncertainty continued to cloud the election even two days before its scheduled kick-off.
Even with the appellate court’s verdict, the managing director of the service provider overseeing the electronic voting platform remained in the custody of the State Security Service (SSS) amid the disputes and allegations thrown up in the build-up to the election.
The association’s National Executive Council condemned the detention, demanded the official’s immediate release and reaffirmed that there was no operational or logistical reason to postpone the election.
The NBA later confirmed that the official had been released before voting day.
The president-elect
Mrs Badejo-Okusanya was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2002 after obtaining her Law degree from the University of Lagos, where she previously earned a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in English.
She started her egal career started at Olaniwun Ajayi LP and became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the highest honour in the Nigerian legal profession, on 29 September 2025.
In the course of her legal practice, she was appointed in 2007 as the Senior Special Assistant on Justice Sector Reform to the then-Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola. At the time, she worked in the office of the then-Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Olasupo Shasore.
She is a member of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA), the African Arbitration Association, ArbitralWomen, the International Bar Association (IBA), the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA), the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), and a Life Member of the African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA). She also serves on the Board of the Lagos Court of Arbitration (LCA).
Her Bar activities have included various leadership roles.
She previously served as Assistant Secretary of the NBA Lagos Branch; Delegate to the 2006 NBA Elections; Member of the NBA Lagos Branch Building Committee; Member of the Future of the Legal Profession Committee; Member of the Conference Investigation Committee; Alternate Chair of the 2023 Annual General Conference Planning Committee; and Chair of the 2024 Annual General Conference Planning Committee.
She was co-opted to serve as a member of the NBA National Executive Council in 2022. She won the NBA Presidential Medal of Service in August, 2024.
She became a founding partner of Africa Law Practice NG & Company in 2017.
The law firm, where she is Co-Head of Litigation and Dispute Resolution Practice, is among Nigeria’s leading commercial law firms with affiliations across Africa.
