On July 20, 2026, the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association declared Mrs Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, elected as the 33rd president of the association, with 12,317 votes, representing 47.18 per cent of the ballots cast, ahead of Mr Lateef Akangbe, SAN, who polled 7,934 votes, and Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, with 5,855. The announcement came from the chairman of the electoral committee, Chief Aham Ejelam, SAN, at the Bar’s national secretariat in Abuja. The result is historic twice over: she is the second woman to lead the Bar, 34 years after Mrs Priscilla Kuye, who held the presidency in 1991 and 1992 in the era before the universal ballot, and the first woman to be elected to the office by the direct vote of the whole membership. Yet the achievement arrived under a cloud. The poll, conducted electronically, was postponed at its scheduled midnight commencement after the electoral committee reported what it described as a “deliberate, coordinated and sustained cyberattack” on the voting platform; it was then extended until 7.35 on the Sunday morning amid nationwide complaints of technical failure and of eligible voters unable to cast their ballots; and at its close both defeated candidates rejected the outcome outright, describing the process as a charade and alleging manipulation and mass disenfranchisement.