Akangbe Challenges NBA Election Figures, Seeks Audit of ECNBA Records

A candidate in the July 18, 2026 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) presidential election, Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe, SAN, has challenged discrepancies in figures published by the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA), demanding clarification and verification of the electoral records.

Akangbe, in his Reply to the ECNBA’s Answer before the NBA National Officers Election Appeals Committee, questioned the accuracy and completeness of records relating to the election.

According to a statement issued by his media team, the ECNBA’s published list of members who voted, arranged by branch, totals 25,901 voters, while its Answer states that 26,184 persons voted.

Akangbe is asking the Appeals Committee to determine the reason for the 283-vote difference between the two figures.

READ ALSO: There Is A Cabal In NBA — Lateef Akangbe

A similar discrepancy, according to the statement, exists in the number of eligible voters.

It said the ECNBA’s Final Voters Register indicated 82,213 eligible voters, while the committee’s Answer referred to 82,172 eligible voters.

Akangbe also alleged that the entire Warri Branch was omitted from the published list of persons who voted, raising questions about the completeness of the voting records.

The former presidential candidate further raised concerns over about 10,166 members of the 2025 Call Set, who were reportedly unable to authenticate themselves through their Supreme Court Call Numbers as required under the Electronic Voting Guidelines.

He also challenged the circumstances surrounding the disruption of the initial voting platform on July 18, the subsequent migration to another platform and the extension of voting into July 19.

On the alleged cyberattack cited as the reason for the disruption, Akangbe is seeking access to technical records that could independently establish what occurred.

The requested records include Cloudflare logs, server and application logs, audit trails, DNS records, SMS gateway records, incident reports and other relevant technical data.

According to the statement, the Reply also identified an approximately one-hour-six-minute interruption in the voting records between 10:28am and 11:34am on July 18.

During the period, votes were reportedly not recorded from 139 branches, while only 14 votes appeared from Aba Branch.

Akangbe consequently questioned the continuity, completeness and integrity of voting records during the period.

The issue of One-Time Password failures was also raised, with Akangbe pointing to the ECNBA’s acknowledgment that sustained traffic affected OTP delivery.

He maintained that several eligible voters could not complete the voting process because they were unable to receive the required authentication codes.

The statement disclosed that Akangbe himself was unable to successfully authenticate and cast his vote in the election in which he was a presidential candidate.

Akangbe, however, clarified that his case was not based on an assertion that votes were unlawfully altered.

“Rather, his position is that the technical information made available is insufficient to independently verify the cause and impact of the disruptions and the completeness and integrity of the underlying election records,” the statement said.

He is therefore seeking the production and examination of relevant electoral and technical records, including the complete final voters’ register, complete list of persons who voted, voting logs, audit trails, unsuccessful voting attempts, OTP records, SMS gateway records, server logs, DNS and Cloudflare records, platform migration records and incident reports.

Akangbe said the central issue was transparency and verifiability, arguing that the credibility of an electronic election depends not only on the declaration of results but also on whether the process and records from which the results emerged can be independently verified.

“The credibility of an electronic election depends not only on the declaration of results, but also on whether the process and records from which those results emerged can be independently verified,” he said.

TVC News had earlier reported that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) concluded its 2026 national officers’ election, with Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, emerging as the association’s 33rd President.

Chairman of the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA), Chief Aham Ejelam, SAN, announced the outcome on Sunday, July 19, after the completion of the electronic voting process.

According to the final results, Badejo-Okusanya secured 12,317 votes, representing 47.18 per cent of the total votes cast, to defeat her closest rival, Lateef Akangbe, SAN, who garnered 7,934 votes (30.39 per cent). The third presidential candidate, Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, polled 5,855 votes, accounting for 22.43 per cent.

Ejelam disclosed that a total of 26,106 valid votes were recorded in the presidential election.