ECNBA DISMISSES ADESINA’S PETITION, SAYS IT LACKS MERIT
• SUBMITS CERTIFIED ELECTION RESULTS FROM ELECTIONBUDDY TO NBA TRUSTEES
• SAYS RESULTS AUTHENTIC. RULES OUT FOUL PLAY
• ENCOURAGES ADESINA TO STUDY ITS FINAL REPORT FOR CLOSURE
On Monday 11 August 2020, the ECNBA provided a written response to the NBA Board of Trustees addressing the Election Petition written by Deacon Dele Adesina.
In its response, the ECNBA confirmed that it had four (4) months to carry out the task of preparing our 40,000+ members for the election of its new National Executives – running between March 13, 2020 and July 30, 2020, between which time it issued twenty-one guidelines in preparation for the Election.
The ECNBA noted that the election was monitored real time from all locations and has been adjudged by many as free and fair. It went on to note that compared with 2016 where only 5400+ lawyers voted and 2018 where only 12000+ lawyers voted, 2020 saw a record number of qualified and verified voters, and an all time high of 18000+ voters with participation higher than 2016 and 2018 combined.
It maintained that contrary to the claims of Deacon Adesina SAN, the election results as monitored and announced, reflected accurately the decision of all participating voters without any form of interference.
ON LIST OF VOTERS
It confirmed that it published a full list of qualified voters on July 1, 2020 in compliance with the provision of the NBA constitution, pulling additional details from NBA Branches to cover those whose details were missing from the original list. It says all qualified voters were required to verify their details ahead of the election and only 29,636 lawyers complied, a list of which it published on July 29, 2020.
ON THE ALLEGATION OF PRELOADED DATA AND WRONG NBA BRANCHES
It clarified that there was no such thing as loading of pre-determined data on the election platform as every voter is identifiable by their Supreme Court Enrolment No., and can be verified using the Certified results provided by ElectionBuddy. It went on to add that although certain names had incorrect Branches and gender assigned to them, the errors were mostly attributable to failure of such lawyers to complete their reelvant details during the verification process. It added that notwithstanding, such details had no impact on the voting procedure itself as all that was required to vote was your SC Enrolment number – which every voter must input before casting their vote.
The ECNBA confirmed that given the NBA’s track record of litigating election outcomes, it experienced difficulty in finding institutions that were willing to work with it on the election. Notwithstanding, it was able to procure the services of an international IT platform with whom a series of trials via mock elections were conducted, involving the ECNBA members and national officers (excluding the NBA President), with satisfactory result.
ON UNDELIVERABLE NOTICES
The ECNBA clarified that the failure to deliver the notices had to do with the voter’s phone number/email and not the platform. It explained that the details shown on the screen was an aggregate of the number of attempts by the Service Provider to deliver election notices to voters – being 5 notices to each voter’s phone number and email, and each failed attempt was aggregated. It noted that a good number of failed deliveries were subsequently resolved for those who were able to comply with the directions in the said ECNBA Statement and the Help desk, resulting in such voters being eventually able to cast their ballot.
CONCLUSION
In concluding, the ECNBA noted that proper data management was critical to the efficiency of the online voter system, and encouraged the NBA Secretariat and Branches to do better at this, as the work of any ECNBA can only be as good as available and well-coordinated data.
