The NBA election was NOT fraudulent but it was unorganised

I have to state that,I did not vote for Paul Usoro in the election and I did not vote for Arthur Obi-Okafor .

I have been reading with dismay the events that followed the declaration of Paul Usoro SAN as the President of the  NBA and  i find it disturbing.

A group of lawyers who supported Arthur Obi-Okafor are trying to set the bar on fire because of their desperation.That will not happen.I find their behaviour recalcitrant.

Paul Usoro emerged as the president of the NBA and i have strong reasons to believe that he won the election meritoriously even against my candidate. Tagging the election fraudulent is an unfair and wicked thing to do. and does no good to the bar.The election was not fraudulent, however,it was not perfect.It was not properly organised and the blame should go to the committee that organised the election not the winner of the election.

All the candidates from the Presidential Candidates to the smallest position in the exco of the NBA paid for the inefficiency that occurred. All of them had people who could have voted for them who did not end up exercising their rights. Prof Ojukwu had people who wanted to vote for him who had issues with either their phone numbers or email and could not vote,Paul Usoro had people like that too who could have voted for him but did not because of email issues,Arthur had such people too.

It can be recalled that why the branches were submitting their list to the ECNBA,news went out that some branches submitted the names of their members with the one email address(probably because they could not collate them within the time given). Some were wrongly spelt.

The lawyers who are trying to introduce chaos to the system with due respect are lawyers with entitlement mentality who have been promised heaven and earth by Arthur Obi-Okafor if he wins the election.

Prof Ojukwu,a man i respect so much raised the issue of fraud but i do not share that opinion.The election was chaotic no doubt but it was not manipulated by anyone to give any candidate an advantage.I do not believe that Paul Usoro,Arthur Obi-Okafor or Professor Ojukwu will give a go ahead to any of their supporters to get involved in a demeaning act like election manipulation.

Another reason why i strongly believe that the election was not manipulated was that even if some emails were cloned as Mr Olowokore is alleging in his release which i doubt makes any sense,it will still be difficult to go ahead with manipulation because the enrolment number of anyone did not appear twice and that was an important feature of the election.To validly cast your vote,you will need to have the enrolment number and the password.

Again,what lawyers complained of was their inability to vote not that someone voted on their behalf which was impossible(unless the person gave you his email and password)

I can remember that during  the verification exercise,it was difficult for someone to use one email twice,this defeats the claim that some email addresses appeared severally on the list of verified list.It is impossible because that is a very easy technology.All ICT platforms that require the submission of data/details are configured like that by default.You cannot successfully use two emails in a platform.

The release by Muyiwa  Olowokore has a a lot of credibility issues. ECNBA never published the verified list with emails.How did he obtain the documents?The documents look like what was used by some people in the run down to the election.Mr Olowokore will need to work hard to convince lawyers that the documents he is sharing around were not manufactured by him to discredit the election.

Our conference will begin today in Abuja,Paul Usoro will be sworn in.It will be dishonourable for anyone to try to influence NEC not to ratify the election or not to swear in Paul Usoro  as President because we are all victims of a  fair but disorganised election where everyone including the winner was a victim.I wish Paul Usoro well and congratulate his supporters for a job well done.I hope for a better bar

Uzochukwu V. Akanobi Esq