With the emergence of Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya (SAN) as the 33rd president of the Nigerian Bar Association, the controversies that had preceded this year’s election would seem to have subsided despite fears that the post-election period might be mired in litigation. Such fears have so far proven only partially founded, as some lawyers have allegedly headed for the courts while the losers in the presidential contest, Lateef Omoyemi Akangba (SAN) and Olumuyiwa Akinboro (SAN), seem to be taking the outcome of the election in their strides.
The newly elected president has extended her hand of friendship to the two other contestants. Mrs. Badejo-Okusanya will not be the first woman to occupy the office of the president when the transition period ends and Mazi Afam Osigwe formally hands over to her. That distinction belongs to Dame Priscilla Kuye, who became president to complete the second of the two-year term of Mr. Clement Akpamgbo (SAN), who had left the NBA presidency after a year to assume office as the Attorney-General of the Federation under the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida.
But Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya is the first female to occupy the office of NBA president by election, and while she appears to have been a very popular candidate, her victory, or the processes that made it possible, have thrown up questions that speak to issues well beyond her immediate constituency as a legal practitioner. It has highlighted the fault lines that have undermined the authority of the NBA as a moral arbiter and a supposedly impartial advocate within the larger context of Nigerian politics. It was just over a year ago, precisely in April 2025, that the NBA was caught in the controversy of a N300 million largess the Rivers State government gave the association for the ‘hosting rights’ of the NBA conference that was to be held in the state. The NBA decided to relocate its conference to Enugu and denied Rivers the hosting right following the declaration of emergency rule in the state.
