President-elect of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, has said competence, rather than gender, was the driving force behind her victory in the association’s just-concluded election.
Speaking on Sunday during an interview on This Day Live, an Arise News programme, Badejo-Okusanya said she intentionally presented herself to members as a capable lawyer and not as a candidate seeking support because she is a woman.
She said her victory demonstrated that competence remains the most important consideration in leadership and expressed hope that gender would eventually cease to be a factor in NBA elections.
“I wouldn’t say that gender was on the front burner of whatever has gone before,” she said.
Reflecting on the outcome of the election, Badejo-Okusanya described her victory as decisive, noting that she secured more than 4,000 votes ahead of her closest challenger.
“It’s easy for me sitting here now, having won, and won decisively, because I had about 4,000 votes more than my closest competitor. So I would call that a decisive win. And so I’m proud of that,” she said.
According to her, the NBA, as an association that reflects the diversity of society, should aspire to a future where leadership contests are decided solely on merit.
“Even if gender was a factor, where we’re heading to, in an association whose members reflect the diversity of gender, men and women, and some even argue that we have more women than men, we want to get to the point where gender is no longer part of the conversation, where all that we see is capacity,” she said.
The senior lawyer emphasized that competence was the central message of her campaign throughout the election.
“I deliberately ran my campaign on that score, not on gender, but on capacity. I wanted people to see a capable woman, not ashamed of being a woman, very proud of being a woman, but I wanted people to see a capable lawyer, first of all. And that’s where I’d like us to go,” she added.
Badejo-Okusanya also said her immediate priority would be to reunite the association after the elections and foster reconciliation among members.
“To be honest with you, it’s easy for me now to forget all the intrigues and the issues that led up to the elections.
“We’re here now, and it’s now time to build, rebuild the association, to start the process of reconciliation and reaching out and working together, because teamwork makes the dream work. So we need to come together,” she said.
“I will be president to all members, both my most ardent supporters and my most strident critics. I’ll be president to them all. And I hope to have the graciousness to be just that, and move the association forward. We need to move the needle. And that’s what I intend to do,” Badejo-Okusanya said.