A candidate in the 2020 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) presidential election, Mr Dele Adesina SAN, Monday shed light on his claim that the process was manipulated.
Adesina renewed a call he made last week for the cancellation of the poll, in a letter to the NBA’s Board of Trustees Chairman, Dr Olisa Agbakoba.
His allegations were however refuted by outgoing NBA President Paul Usoro.
Former NBA Secretary-General Adesina and his brother Silk Dr Babatunde Ajibade last Thursday lost the race for the NBA Presidency to a non-SAN, Mr Olumide Akpata.
Akpata will succeed Usoro SAN later this month.
But in his petition seen by The Nation, Adesina alleged that the election was marred by over-voting, disenfranchisement of some eligible voters, and non-compliance with the provisions of the NBA constitution.
According to him, the voters register verified by the Electoral Committee of NBA (ECNBA) was found to be “manipulated, doctored and padded”.
Adesina said the register contained “4,464 names of purported Lawyers without Branches ascribed to any of them from Serial Number 25171 to 29635. This List obviously provided cover for harvested voters without Branches;
“86 names of Lawyers (were) under the category ‘International Diaspora’ from Serial Number 12182 to 12268, a clear violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the NBA. International Diaspora as a Branch is unknown to the NBA Constitution.”
He alleged that there were cases of inflation of the list of some Branches, including “For instance, Obollo-Afor Branch had only 39 names from Serial Number 30424 to 30462 on the Final List for Verification. Strangely, this increased to 662 on the Verified Voters List published on the date of the Election.”
According to him, there was also deletion/removal of names of many members from the final list. “For example: Ikeja, Ibadan, Enugu, Ife, Ado-Ekiti and many others had their number of voters substantially reduced without any explanation whatsoever or howsoever,” Adesina said.
In another instance, he alleged that the voting site had predetermined election data.
