A former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law, (NBA-SBl) Mr Olumide Akpata, has emerged as the 30th President of the NBA.
Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA) made the declaration at the end of the presidential poll which held electronically between 11pm on Wednesday and 11pm on Thursday.
The Chairman of the ECNBA, Chief Tawo Tawo (SAN), announced that Akpata polled 9,891 votes to defeat Dr Babatunde Ajibade (SAN) and Mr Dele Adesina (SAN).
Ajibade emerged first runner-up with 4,328 votes while Adesina polled 3,982 votes.
Though a total of 29,636 lawyers were accredited to vote in the e-election, only 18,256 succeeded in casting their ballots.
Akpata scored 54.3 per cent of the cast votes to emerge winner who will lead the NBA for the next two years.
Adesina had on Thursday described the association’s national officers’ election as a sham and called on the electoral committee to cancel it.
The call was contained in his petition which he personally signed and addressed to the electoral committee chairman on Thursday.
He alleged in the petition that the voter register used for the election contained “grave errors” which violated the provisions of the NBA constitution.
Other elected officers for the various offices include Mr John Aikpokpo-Martins as NBA First Vice President with a total of 6,010 votes.
Mr Adeyemo Kazeem emerged NBA Second Vice President with 8,794 votes, Mrs Joyce Oduah was elected NBA General Secretary with 8,979 votes, while
Mrs Uchenna Nwadialo polled 7,314 votes to emerge NBA’s Assistant General Secretary.
Mrs Mercy Agada was elected NBA Treasurer unopposed, Mr Nnamdi Anagor emerged the financial secretary while Mr Olukunle Edun was elected NBA Welfare Secretary with 9,001 votes.
Dr Rapulu Nduka emerged the NBA Publicity Secretary with 11,964 votes while Mr Naza Afam polled 6,490 votes to emerge NBA Assistant Publicity Secretary.
Akpata expressed appreciation to NBA members for electing him the President, and promised that NBA would record transformation during his administration.
The newly elected president, who is a graduate of Law from the University of Benin, is a Senior Partner at Templars, a leading commercial law firm.
The new executives will be sworn in at a later date.
