Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has sworn in Olumide Akpata as its 30th President on Friday, August 28.
Akpata is the first non-Senior Advocate of Nigeria, to lead the NBA in years, having defeated two SANs in an online election the legal body conducted between July 29 and July 30.
Akpata with 9,891 beat his major rivals – Dr. Babatunde Ajibade (SAN) who scored 4,328 and Adesina (SAN) who scored 3,982 votes.
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He was sworn-in at a short ceremony held at the NBA National Secretariat in Abuja, which was streamed live online, marking the end of the tenure of the Paul Usoro administration.
The new president thanked the past executive for ensuring that the Association was held together after which he swore in members of his executives.
Akpata, a former NBA Chairman, Section on Business Law, won the controversial election on July 31, a result that did not go down well with some other legal practitioners.
Following his emergence as President-elect of Africa’s largest bar association, one of the presidential candidates, Dele Adesina, asked the Body of Trustees of the association to cancel the polls.
In his 11-page petition to the body, Adesina described the election as “electronic fraud, illegal and unconstitutional.”
He called on the Chairman of NBA Board of Trustees, Olisa Agbakoba to “rise up and save the Association by cancelling the elections and conducting a fresh one.”
Although Ajibade accepted the outcome of the election and congratulated the winner of the election, he however pointed out that the build-up to the elections and the elections were not been devoid of controversy.
