A group of lawyers has asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to halt the swearing-in of Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya as president of the Nigerian Bar Association, threatening to derail her inauguration scheduled for August 21, 2026.
Badejo-Okusanya, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, won the NBA election with 12,317 votes, defeating two other candidates, Lateef Akangbe, SAN, and Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN. She is expected to succeed outgoing president Afam Osigwe, SAN, at the inauguration ceremony.
The legal challenge came through additional reliefs filed on July 20, 2026, in a pending suit numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/1471/2026, brought by the Incorporated Trustees of the Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners against the Attorney-General of the Federation and the NBA.
In the additional reliefs, ALDRAP asked the court to join Badejo-Okusanya, Akinboro, Akangbe, Amnesty International’s Nigeria office, YIAGA, and the Transition Monitoring Group as necessary parties in the suit.
The lawyers are specifically seeking “an order of interim/perpetual injunction restraining the 2nd Respondent (NBA), its agents, privies, National Executive Committee, or any persons claiming through them, from swearing in Mrs Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, or any other person as President of the Nigerian Bar Association or into any other National Office, until the final determination of this suit or further order of this court.”
They also asked the court to maintain the status quo in the NBA’s leadership pending the final determination of the suit.
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ALDRAP said its challenge covers a range of concerns about the election process, including alleged voter disenfranchisement, technical failures of the electronic voting platform, non-compliance with the NBA’s National Executive Committee-approved timetable, and questions about the applicability of constitutional principles under Section 134(2) of the 1999 Constitution.
The original suit, filed before the election, had asked the court to stop the Attorney-General from interfering in the NBA election and to prevent both the AGF and the NBA from interfering in the conferment of the Blue Silks rank of Senior Counsel of Nigeria, an alternative title to SAN introduced for non-litigation lawyers.
ALDRAP had also sought the appointment of the Nigerian Law Society and the Law Society of Lesotho as independent observers for the election.
The group’s Administrative Secretary, Jesse Williams Amuga, expressed concern that none of the independent observers who monitored the election had released any report on the electronic voting infrastructure used.
“Twenty-four hours after the alleged NBA elections, not a single international or domestic election observer has released any report to corroborate their observations of the e-voting infrastructure that both the NBA President and the ECNBA alleged that they deployed,” Amuga said.
“Amnesty, YIAGA and TMG are afraid of soiling their respective reputations. If no independent observers are commenting on the alleged NBA elections, that speaks volumes,” he added.