Olumide Akpata Elected New NBA President

Following the outcome of the online presidential election, the Nigerian Bar Association now has a new leader, Olumide Akpata, who is not from the rank of senior advocates.

Olumide Akpata has emerged the new President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) defeating two other candidates in the election concluded on Thursday, 30th July, 2020.

Akpata,  who is an expert in corporate and commercial law, is the only candidate who was not a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) at the election, defeated Babatunde Ajibade and Julius Adesina, both Senior Advocates of Nigeria.

This will be the first time in over three decades that the President of the NBA will be emerging from the outer bar, and not among the rank of senior advocates.

Alao Aka-Bashorun, widely regarded as one of finest Presidents of the Bar who served between 1987 to 1989, during the repressive military regime of Ibrahim Babangida was not a senior advocate.

Other lawyers had cited his example as a campaign weapon to wrest the leadership of the Association from the privileged class of senior advocates

The NBA elections were conducted online where accredited members voted electronically.