Democracy Is Not About Pleasing Every Loser’ – Banji Alabi Speaks on NBA Election Dispute

Democracy Is Not About Pleasing Every Loser’ – Banji Alabi Speaks on NBA Election Dispute

…Says Cancelling Election Without Due Process Sets Dangerous Precedent…

 

Legal practitioner Banji Alabi, Esq. has opposed growing calls for the cancellation of the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) election, arguing that any grievances arising from the electoral process should be resolved through the Bar’s established constitutional and legal mechanisms rather than by annulling the election outright.

 

In a statement released to Our Heritage Reporter addressed to his colleagues, Alabi maintained that no election anywhere in the world is entirely free from disputes, stressing that imperfections alone are insufficient grounds to invalidate an electoral exercise.

 

He warned that cancelling the election without exhausting the available appeal and petition processes would undermine due process and create a dangerous precedent capable of eroding confidence in future NBA elections.
Although he disclosed that Aare Muyiwa Akinboro was his preferred candidate, Alabi said the appropriate response to any alleged irregularities is to present credible evidence before the relevant electoral committee or tribunal, insisting that the rule of lawnot public pressure or sentiment—should determine the outcome of election disputes.

 

Full statement reads

Re: Call for Cancellation of the 2026 NBA Election

My learned Friends,

With respect, the proposition that “the cancellation of the election should proceed without delay”_ deserves interrogation, not implementation.

Let me ask a few rhetorical questions that go to the heart of any credible legal system, be it a school prefect election or a national election:

1. Where in the world does a perfect election exist?
Show me one jurisdiction — from the NBA in America to the UK Bar Council — where results are not disputed. If imperfection voids an election, then no election in human history would stand. Should we then stop conducting elections altogether?

1. If we cancel this election and conduct another, what guarantees that the new result will not also be disputed? Are we prepared to keep cancelling in perpetuity until we manufacture a result that pleases every loser? That is not democracy; that is anarchy by consensus.

2. If every process is jettisoned because “ nobody can explain how the results arrived at the figures they did before the platform went live”_, then what becomes of due process? The law does not act on suspicion or on what “nobody can explain.” It acts on evidence, properly presented before the appropriate tribunal.

As Lord Denning MR once put it: – “Justice is not a cloistered virtue; she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken, comments of ordinary men.”_ Scrutiny, yes. But through the courts, not through cancellation by fiat.

Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court also warned: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them.”_ Our electoral guidelines and bar constitution provide the rules. They provide for petitions, appeals, and tribunals. They do not provide for cancellation by press statement.

And as Nelson Mandela reminded us: -There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere.”_ There is also no easy walk to a credible Bar. Credibility is built when aggrieved parties test their grievances through the laid-down appellate process, not when we throw away the baby with the bath water because the temperature is not to our liking.

My position is clear:* Aare Muyiwa Akinboro was my candidate. He lost. If he, or any candidate, has credible evidence of malpractice, the honourable path is to appeal and prove it before the electoral committee or the appropriate body. That is how we build jurisprudence. That is how we build a Bar.

To cancel this election without hearing, without forensic audit if necessary, and without exhausting constitutional remedies is to set a precedent that no future election can survive. Today it is Akinboro’s camp; tomorrow it will be yours.

Let us move forward.- Let us subject our grievances to law, not to sentiment. That is the only way to build a credible Bar.

Yours in service to the Bar,

Banji Alabi, Esq.