Badejo-Okusanya Rises to Power: NBA Elects New President!
Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, has been elected the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association President, marking her as the second woman to lead the NBA and the first to be directly elected. Her historic win came after an election marred by a cyberattack and prior controversies, with other national officers also successfully elected.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, has made history by winning the 2026 presidential election of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), making her the second woman to lead the umbrella body of lawyers in the country. Her victory was officially declared on Sunday morning, July 19, 2026, by Aham Ejalam, SAN, the Chairman of the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA), hours after the polls closed and results were collated.
Badejo-Okusanya secured a significant mandate, polling 12,317 votes, which accounted for 47.18 percent of the total votes cast for the presidential position. Her closest contender, Mr. Lateef Akangbe, SAN, received 7,934 votes (30.39%), while the consensus candidate of the Omo Egbe Amofin O’odua, Are Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, came in third with 5,855 votes (22.43%).
The election, held between July 18 and 19, 2026, saw 26,184 votes cast in total, with 26,106 specifically for the presidential candidates. These votes came from a total of 82,172 registered voters. While Mrs. Badejo-Okusanya is the second woman to hold the presidential office, she holds the distinction of being the first female president to be directly elected to the position. The first female president, Dame Priscilla Olabori Kuye, served from 1991 to 1992 after stepping into the role as First Vice President when the elected President, Chief Clement Akpamgbo, was appointed Attorney General of the Federation.
Other key national officers also emerged from the elections. Oghenero Okoro was elected First Vice President with 11,024 votes, while Afam Okeke secured the General Secretary position with 8,478 votes. Aghogho Gladys won as Assistant General Secretary with 14,312 votes, and Chinelo Audrey Ofoegbunam was elected Welfare Secretary with 14,911 votes, among other successful candidates.
The election process was not without its challenges. Voting, which began on Saturday, July 18, 2026, at 7:35 am, experienced technical difficulties in its early hours. The ECNBA reported that the original election portal came under a “deliberate, coordinated and sustained cyberattack” aimed at disrupting the process. The committee, led by Aham Ejelam (SAN) and Secretary Ibrahim Aliyu Nassarawa, swiftly activated emergency security protocols, migrated the platform to a new secure domain, and ensured that no votes were accepted during the disruption. Voting resumed for a continuous 24-hour period, ending on Sunday, July 19, 2026, at 7:35 am.
The election had also been preceded by weeks of controversy. There were allegations of attempts to rig or interfere with the election, as well as calls for its postponement and demands for mandatory National Identification Number (NIN) verification for voters. However, the incumbent NBA President, Afam Osigwe (SAN), vehemently denied these claims, asserting that the ECNBA operated independently without his influence and that allegations of manipulation in past NBA elections had never been substantiated in court.