The 2020 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) elections, particularly that for the office of the president may have come and gone but not without some lessons for subsequent contestants.
The build up to the election as expected was both dramatic and controversial. No Doubt, the three contestants; Deacon Dele Adesina (SAN), Dr. Babatunde Ajibade (SAN) and Olumide Akpata are all experienced and fit to lead the foremost body of Nigerian lawyers but one can only emerge amongst them.
And for the first time in years, a non-SAN in person of Olumide Akpata emerged. However, the reason for his landslide victory particularly in a race he could have been easily intimidated and edged out due to the caliber of the two other candidates is not far fetched.
For the first time, no thanks to the novel coronavirus disease [COVID-19], the NBA election was fully digital. This alone segregated the class of voters into two; the tech savvy and non-tech savvy.
On another level, the voters were further segregated based on class. SANs and Non-SANs. Electing a SAN as president of NBA is more like a tradition and nobody saw it coming at least for now that the tradition was about to change.
Knowing quite well that the segregation was to his advantage, Akpata did not waste time in maximising the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Before the election proper, he and his team must have weighted the options and discovered it was in their favour. It was quite obvious, the Non-SANs are more that the SANs and tech-savvy lawyers are more than the non-tech savvy ones.
Armed with this knowledge, Akpata;
- Concentrated his energy and campaign on young lawyers who have longed complained of marginalistion and disenfranchisement
- Focused on NBA branches with young lawyers
- Assisted as much lawyers as he can financially when the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed mayhem on the economy
- Deployed and maximise technology to drive the core of his campaign
- Intentionally widened the SAN/Non-SAN discrimination to garner sympathy votes
- Used celebrities to influence voting patterns
While the SANs in the race had the luxury of lobbying the creme-dela-creme and young lawyers for votes, Akpata simply focused on the young lawyers who are desirous for ‘change’ in the NBA leadership.
It was naturally expected that while the SANs and old generation lawyers will battle network and their not-so-smart gadgets to vote their choice, the young lawyers who are always online would face no hitches at all to cast their votes.
At the end of the day, Akpata won the election convincingly with over 50 percent of the total votes cast. Meanwhile, one of the contestants, Dr. Ajibade has since congratulated Akpata while Deacon Adesina called for a cancellation of the process citing some irregularities.
