The president-elect, Mr Maikyau, when sworn in, would become the 31st president of the NBA.
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has elected Yakubu Maikyau as its president.
Mr Maikyau, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), emerged the winner of the election after securing a total of 22,342 votes to defeat his major opponent, Joe-Kyari Gadzama, another SAN who polled 10,842 votes.
The third candidate for the association’s top office, Taidi Gunu, clinched 380 votes, representing 4 per cent of the total 34,554 votes that were tallied for the position.
The election commenced at 12 noon on Saturday, July 16, and ended at 12 midnight.
Other positions
The election produced other officers of the association.
Adesina Adegbite emerged as the General Secretary, while Daniel Ka-Ayli was elected Assistant General Secretary.
Chinyere Obasi was elected as National Welfare Secretary, Habeeb Lawal as the National Publicity Secretary, Olawole Ajiboye as the Assistant Publicity Secretary and Anze-Bishop Ladidi as the Treasurer.
The lawyers’ union also elected Linda Bala as 1st Vice President of the association, Clement Ugo as 2nd Vice President and Amanda Demechi-Asagba as the 3rd Vice President.
Similarly, the NBA elected 20 lawyers as members of the NBA General Council to represent the Western, Eastern and Northern zones of lawyers in the country.
How the election went
Giving further details about the election, Mr Akintunde revealed that while 1,346 emails that were sent out to some of the eligible voters bounced back, only 34,809 lawyers, representing 58.61 per cent of the membership strength of the association, took part in the election that was conducted electronically.
He highlighted some of the hitches that were complained of by members of the NBA including difficulties by lawyers to correctly input their Supreme Court number as instructed, wrong/invalid contact information, no voting links, and multiple email reminders.
Maikyau solicits support of co-contestants
In his victory speech, Mr Maikyau sought the cooperation of all contenders in the election for the greater good of lawyers in Nigeria.
He lauded the outgoing president of the NBA, Mr Akpata, for his quality leadership of the NBA in the last two years.
Mr Maikyau promised that the NBA during his tenure would speak truth to power and promote the rule of law and protect human rights in the country.
On his part, the outgoing President of the NBA, Mr Akpata, commended the members of the NBA electoral committee for their hard work to ensure the success of the election.
He advised those that lost in the election to accept the results in good faith in the overall interest of the NBA.
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