The only female contender for the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Presidency, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okunsanya (SAN), is currently leading the poll with a wide margin at the ongoing election of the association.
Despite controversies surrounding the conduct of the online election with allegations ranging from rigging to sabotage, over 20,000 NBA members have cast their votes.
The real-time result as observed by NPO Reports at 6:21pm showed Badejo-Okunsanya leading the poll with 10,207 votes which represents 46 percent of the total votes currently cast.
Trailing behind Badejo-Okunsanya is Lateef Akangbe (SAN) who currently poll 6,857 votes while the third candidate, Olumuyiwa Akinboro (SAN) gathered 5,147 votes.
While the total number of registered voters stand at 82,164, only 22,290 eligible members have voted which represents 27.15 percent turnout.
The low turnout had however been largely attributed to alleged sabotage of the portal which reportedly crashed few hours after voting commenced.
While it was resuscitated, some of the voters had called out the outgoing president, Afam Osigwe, over inability to vote as their One-Time Password (OTP) could not be verified.
This had fuelled the speculations of the election being rigged with some legal practitioners taking to the social media handles to fault the election process.
Also joining the dissenting voice was Akangbe who, in a letter issued to the Electoral Committee of the NBA, called for the suspension of the election.
Akangbe alleged breach of the revised voting guidelines as the OTPs were sent on e-mails rather than SMS as stated in the guideline.
He also called the attention of the ECNBA to graphic defect on the presidential candidates as his image and that of fellow candidate, Muyiwa Akinboro, failed to appear on the portal.
With only the image of Oyinkansola Badejo Okusanya (SAN) appearing on the portal, Akangbe held that the defect raised question over the competence and diligence of the Electronic Voting Service Provider and the ECNBA’s oversight of the process.
Akangbe thereafter highlighted his demands which included the immediate suspension of the election, preservation and quarantine of all data, and commissioning of independent technical audit of the voting platform amongst others.
However, the election had since continued with the result portal updating as members cast their votes.