A high-stakes legal battle threatening to shake confidence in the Nigerian Bar Association’s electronic voting system was finally heard at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Monday, as lawyers clashed over allegations that the association withheld critical election materials from a candidate challenging the transparency of its controversial 2024 presidential poll.
The appeal, filed by Tobenna Erojikwe, the first runner-up in the July 2024 NBA presidential election, is rapidly becoming one of the most consequential internal legal disputes the NBA has faced in years, raising uncomfortable questions about transparency, electronic voting integrity, institutional accountability, and whether Nigeria’s most influential legal body is willing to obey its own constitution.
After months of adjournments, procedural delays, and growing speculation within legal circles, the matter was finally argued on Monday before the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal alongside a cross-appeal filed by the NBA itself.
“The Electronic Voting System Must Be Above Reproach”
Arguing before the appellate court, counsel to Erojikwe Okechukwu Umemuo, framed the dispute as far bigger than a personal grievance over election results.
He told the court the appeal was fundamentally about enforcing the NBA’s own constitutional obligations under the Second Schedule, Part II, Paragraph 8 of the NBA Constitution, which mandates the association to provide access to election-related materials, databases, and records in the interest of openness and transparency.
According to the appellant, the provision was deliberately designed to ensure confidence in the NBA’s electronic voting process and protect the legitimacy of leaders produced through digital elections.
“The electronic voting system of the NBA must be above reproach,” counsel argued, insisting that members of the legal profession deserve confidence in the integrity of the process used to elect their leadership.
Erojikwe is asking the appellate court to overturn the lower court ruling and compel the NBA and other respondents to release materials used in the conduct of the 2024 election audit.
NBA Pushes Back, Questions Appeal Jurisdiction
The NBA, however, urged the Court of Appeal to dismiss the case entirely.
Senior counsel representing the association, Abdul Ibrahim, SAN, argued that the NBA had already provided all relevant information requested by the appellant except for the personal data of voters, which it said raised legitimate privacy concerns.
Notably, however, counsel did not specify exactly which election materials had allegedly been released.
The NBA also pressed a cross-appeal asking the Court of Appeal to decline jurisdiction altogether, a move some observers interpret as an aggressive attempt to shut down judicial scrutiny of the association’s internal electoral processes.
The third respondent, ElectionBuddy, was absent from proceedings.
Counsel to the appellant subsequently applied under Order 19 Rule 9(4) for ElectionBuddy’s brief to be deemed properly argued despite the absence. The court granted the application.
After hearing arguments from both sides, the appellate court reserved judgment to a later date yet to be communicated to the parties.
Missing Documents, Adjournments and Mounting Suspicion
The case has already become a flashpoint within Nigeria’s legal community after repeated adjournments and unusual procedural disruptions fuelled suspicions of deliberate delay tactics.
At an earlier hearing, NBA lawyers sought an adjournment, citing travel difficulties preventing their appearance in Abuja.
Counsel to Erojikwe, however, strongly opposed the request and urged the court to invoke Order 6 Rule 8(2) of the Court of Appeal Rules 2021, which allows matters to proceed where parties have already filed written addresses, even if counsel fail to appear.
The court rejected the adjournment application.
But just as proceedings appeared ready to continue, another controversy erupted when key documents, including portions of the respondents’ filings, were reportedly missing from the justices’ case files despite indications they had earlier been confirmed by registry officials.
The development abruptly stalled proceedings and intensified murmurs inside the legal community.
The Constitutional and Legal Battle
The dispute now sits at the intersection of constitutional governance, electoral transparency, and data privacy law.
At the trial court, the NBA successfully argued that releasing certain election materials could violate voter privacy protections.
The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory ruled that Erojikwe would need consent from lawyers who participated in the election before accessing some of the requested records.
Supporters of the appeal insist that interpretation dangerously weakens electoral accountability.
They argue that the lower court failed to properly consider exceptions contained in Nigeria’s data protection and public-interest legal framework, particularly where disclosure is necessary to test the integrity of an electoral process.
Some lawyers privately compare the ruling to requiring presidential candidates to obtain consent from every Nigerian voter before accessing election records from the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The NBA, however, maintains that the appellant failed to discharge the evidentiary burden required under Section 133 of the Evidence Act 2011 and relied heavily on the appellate authority in Oyovbiare v Omamurhomu to argue that no perversity had been shown in the lower court’s judgment.
A Bigger Crisis for the NBA?
What began as an election records dispute is now evolving into something potentially more damaging for the NBA: a credibility crisis.
The NBA has long positioned itself as one of Nigeria’s loudest institutional defenders of constitutionalism, transparency, electoral integrity, and rule of law.
Critics now argue the association itself is being tested by the very standards it routinely demands from governments and public institutions.
“If the process was transparent and credible, why resist an audit?” one Abuja-based lawyer familiar with the dispute asked privately after proceedings.
That question is increasingly resonating within sections of the legal profession ahead of another NBA election cycle expected in July.
For many lawyers, the case is no longer simply about who won or lost the 2024 election.
It is about whether the NBA’s electronic voting architecture can withstand independent scrutiny, and whether the association is willing to submit itself to the same democratic accountability standards it demands from the Nigerian state.
The Court of Appeal’s eventual ruling could now have consequences far beyond Erojikwe himself.
It may determine how transparent future NBA elections become, and whether confidence in the association’s internal democracy can be fully restored.
