WITH less than 24 hours to the 2020 Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, national elections scheduled to take place between July 29 and 30, The ICIR examines the likely blindspots that may compromise the transparency of the elections.

On July 6, the Electoral Committee of the NBA, ECNBA, released the list of 24 candidates who were cleared to contest for national leadership positions and rejected the nominations of 19 aspirants.

Now only three candidates are in the race to take over from Paul Usoro as the 35th president of Nigeria’s umbrella association of professional lawyers.

Two Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, in the race includes Adesina Julius and Ajibade Babatunde who both have on their belt 38 and 31 years of legal practice respectively.

Olumide Akpata who is the younger of the other two candidates if elected would join the small league of previous NBA presidents without a SAN title.

The ECNBA is saddled with conducting free, fair and transparent elections into national leadership of the NBA. This includes verifying 39,291 eligible voters for one of the largest professional bodies in Africa with over 200,000 members.

As the 2020 contenders for President of the NBA jostle for votes from their colleagues alongside other contestants for national leadership positions, issues ranging from voter verification, missing names on the voters’ list, and an untested electronic voting portal threaten to scuttle the outcome of the elections.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/compromised-voters-register-flawed-e-voting-process-threaten-2020-nba-elections/