*Wants permanent register, transparent e-voting, dispute tribunal
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr. Wahab Shittu, has called for far-reaching institutional reform of the Nigerian Bar Association’s electoral process, arguing that the controversies that trailed the 2026 presidential election have exposed deep and recurring concerns about the credibility of the Bar’s internal democracy.
In an intervention on the 2026 NBA ballot crisis, Shittu, SAN, contends that the election of Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, as the 33rd President of the Association, though a landmark, was overshadowed by controversy that must now become the catalyst for lasting reform. He stresses that his critique is directed not at the President-elect or her mandate, which he has congratulated, but at a process he says requires urgent overhaul.
Shittu notes that Badejo-Okusanya is only the second woman to lead the Bar, thirty-four years after Mrs. Priscilla Kuye, and the first to attain the office through the direct votes of the Association’s nationwide membership. He recalls that the electronically conducted poll, scheduled to begin at midnight on 20 July 2026, was delayed after the Electoral Committee reported what it described as a “deliberate, coordinated and sustained cyberattack” on the voting platform, and was later extended following complaints of technical failures, delayed authentication codes and the inability of many eligible lawyers to vote. He adds that the two defeated candidates rejected the outcome, alleging manipulation and widespread disenfranchisement.
The Senior Advocate frames the stakes beyond the Bar’s internal affairs, arguing that because the NBA routinely scrutinises public elections and demands accountability from electoral institutions, its own processes must reflect the standards it expects of others. In his words, a Bar that cannot guarantee the integrity of its own ballot cannot credibly demand credible elections from the nation.
Shittu groups the grievances surrounding the election into five broad complaints. The first is access, with lawyers reporting difficulty logging into the platform, one-time passwords that were delayed or never arrived, and confusion created by multiple voting links, shortcomings he says the committee implicitly acknowledged by extending the voting window.
The second is the integrity of the platform, where the disclosure of a cyberattack, however professionally managed, raised questions about the security and reliability of the technology, with the defeated candidates alleging outright manipulation. The third is transparency, as the publication of live voting totals while polling was still underway generated uncertainty before the dashboard was withdrawn. The fourth is the voters’ register, whose reliance on branch records and practising-fee payments again produced disputes over accuracy and completeness.
The fifth and, for Shittu, most important complaint is legitimacy. He observes that the President-elect herself, while receiving her Certificate of Return, acknowledged that the belief that the Bar’s elections are rigged had, even if unproven, “assumed the toga of reality.”
In fairness, Shittu acknowledges the other side of the story, noting that the election was concluded with more than 26,000 lawyers participating in the presidential poll, that the committee responded to operational challenges rather than ignoring them, and that the margin of victory was substantial. He credits the President-elect with acknowledging the trust deficit, making electoral reform her first priority and offering an independent post-election forensic audit, and recalls that President Bola Tinubu similarly urged the Association to address the shortcomings.
Shittu argues that the controversies persist because their causes are institutional rather than incidental, and identifies five structural factors. The first is ad hoc electoral administration, with a new committee constituted for each election, often shortly before the poll, by the very leadership whose succession it supervises, producing an absence of institutional memory, a perception of limited independence and a lack of continuing accountability.
The second is an unreliable electoral register reconstructed before every election under severe time pressure. The third is unverifiable voting technology, where he says the problem is not electronic voting itself, which remains the only practical option for a nationwide membership, but the absence of verifiable electronic voting, procured without transparent competition, without routinely published security audits and without any means for voters to confirm that the votes they cast are the votes counted.
The fourth is weak dispute resolution, with petitions determined within the same institutional framework that conducted the election and no independent tribunal whose decisions command confidence. The fifth is a culture of distrust, fed by unregulated and undisclosed campaign financing and the subtle advantages of incumbency, which he says has effectively shifted the burden of proof so that the Association must now prove that its elections are credible.
Shittu proposes a set of reforms he describes as practical, achievable and capable of implementation before the 2028 general election.
He recommends, first, replacing the ad hoc Electoral Committee with a standing and independent Bar Electoral Commission entrenched in the Association’s Constitution, whose members serve staggered terms spanning successive cycles, are appointed with broad institutional participation including the National Executive Committee, past Presidents and the Body of Benchers, are barred from contesting Bar offices for a period after leaving, and enjoy financial independence through a dedicated allocation from practising-fee revenue.
Secondly, he calls for a permanent, continuously updated membership database reconciled with practising-fee records throughout the year, published well in advance for verification, with every eligible voter receiving a unique, secure identity credential and the handling of personal data complying with the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023.
Thirdly, he urges the institutionalisation of transparent and verifiable electronic voting, with the platform selected through open competitive procurement, subjected to independent security audits before every election and mandatory forensic audits afterwards, and an end-to-end mechanism allowing every voter to verify that their ballot was accurately recorded and counted, alongside published rules on the publication of results and on contingencies such as cyberattacks and system failures.
Fourthly, on electoral operations, he insists that the technology provider be chosen through an open, criteria-based process limited to vendors with proven experience in large-scale electronic elections and recognised information-security certification, with disclosed ownership and selection overseen by an independent technical panel of experts in technology law and cybersecurity.
Fifthly, to improve voter access and reliability, he recommends rigorous stress testing and a mock election using the actual register, protection against cyberattacks, redundant backups, a fixed voting period of at least 24 to 48 hours to eliminate last-minute extensions, assisted voting centres through the branches, and a public system-status dashboard and helpdesk throughout the exercise.
Sixthly, on authentication, he calls for a single official election portal, communication through authenticated digital channels, credentials delivered through multiple secure methods including email, SMS and authentication applications, and a credential-verification exercise conducted weeks before polling so that no lawyer discovers on election day that he or she cannot vote.
Seventhly, he proposes a standing Election Dispute Tribunal made up of respected senior lawyers and retired judicial officers with no involvement in Bar politics, receiving and determining petitions within defined timelines and publishing reasoned decisions, with internal mechanisms exhausted before any recourse to the courts.
Eighthly, he recommends campaign-finance rules requiring candidates to disclose funding sources, observe expenditure limits and comply with an enforceable code of conduct, so that leadership is determined by merit and ideas rather than financial advantage.
Ninthly, he urges the Association to embrace the President-elect’s commitment to an independent forensic audit of the 2026 election, examining the platform, the register and the counting process under terms agreed by all presidential candidates and published in full, arguing that a credible audit strengthens the mandate if it confirms the integrity of the poll and provides a foundation for reform if it does not, with the only damaging outcome being to avoid the audit altogether.
Shittu sets out a timeline under which the forensic audit is completed before the end of 2026, followed by member consultation and constitutional amendments at the 2027 Annual General Meeting, the establishment and funding of a permanent Electoral Commission before the end of 2027, and a continuous register and independently audited platform in place ahead of the 2028 general election. He maintains that none of this exceeds the Association’s capacity and that what is required is the determination to build institutions that outlast the administrations that create them.
His prognosis is one of guarded optimism. He warns that one familiar future would see protests subside, reform proposals gather dust and the 2028 election conducted under essentially the same framework, deepening the cycle of mistrust, while the alternative would make July 2026 the turning point that finally compels the Association to build a credible electoral system. He cites reasons for cautious hope, including the President-elect’s acknowledgement of the trust deficit, her convincing margin of victory and a membership no longer willing to accept recurring controversies as inevitable, but insists that success depends on reform that is institutional rather than personal.
Ultimately, Shittu argues, the presidency will be judged by whether the 2028 election is held under an independent electoral commission, on a credible register, using verifiable technology and subject to impartial dispute resolution.
Dr. Wahab Shittu, SAN, teaches law at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, and is the Principal Partner of W. K. Shittu & Co., Lagos.
The intervention adds a detailed reform blueprint to the growing pressure on the incoming NBA leadership to act on the fallout from the July poll. Its significance lies less in restating the complaints, which are by now familiar, than in tying them to concrete institutional fixes with a costed timeline pegged to the 2028 election, and in framing the credibility of the Bar’s ballot as a test of the Association’s moral authority to police public elections. For the President-elect, who has already conceded a trust deficit and offered a forensic audit, the piece functions as both endorsement and yardstick, converting her early pledges into a checklist against which her tenure is likely to be measured.
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