Tobi Soniyi in Abuja
Less than 24 hours to the Nigerian Bar Association’s general elections, the Joe-Kyari Gadzama Campaign Organization has asked the NBA leadership to shift the date of the election scheduled for this Saturday.
The group cited lack of transparency and shoddy preparations by the Electoral Committee of Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA),
It also accused the NBA’s President Augustine Alegeh, SAN, of openly supporting and canvassing for votes for one of the candidates in the election.
The Gadzama campaign organisation, which spoke through one of its members, Prof. Maxwell Gidado (SAN) told a press conference in Abuja yesterday that there was the need to shift the election so as to accommodate all the updates in the voters register and to ensure that eligible voters were not disenfranchised in the process.
Gidado said the introduction of the “universal suffrage” for the election was commendable because it would give every lawyer equal participation in the choice of the NBA leadership but, regretted that the noble idea was being negated by certain actions and/or inactions.
According to him, the J.K Gadzama Campaign Organization has chronicled the anomalies and brought them to the attention of both the ECNBA and the NBA President for necessary correction to guarantee a free and fair elections.
Gidado said the NBA was supposed to act as the conscience of the nation and to show examples especially in issues of democratic practices.
He however said the brazen show of preference for and serious capital and human resource investment into promoting one candidate over another by the NBA president undermined the integrity of the entire elections.
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