Thread by @ChidiOdinkalu

Yesterday, @officialEFCC charged 2 staff of @NigBarAssoc with 14 counts of digital fraud in connection with rigging #NBADecides2018, which produced Mr. Paul Usoro as the President of the Association.

His tenure ends next month. It's a long story... THREAD
punchng.com/efcc-to-arraig…

Leadership elections in @NigBarAssoc were always scandalous. Until 2016, they elections were through delegates.

The delegates began to make money through the process & it became a big deal to be selected as one. Once you were one, you became rich

premiumtimesng.com/opinion/column…

By 2014, the process had become too expensive. In #NBADecides2014, "money spoke very loudly. By some estimates, @NigBarAssoc's 2014 elections were the 1st in which the campaign expenditure easily crossed the One billion Naira mark."

opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2014/07/22/loo…

So, in 2016, @NigBarAssoc decided to move from delegates election to #DigitalBallot. The rationales made sense but there were forces that felt threatened by the inherent indeterminacy of digital balloting & were determined to bring it to disrepute.

opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2016/08/09/174…

#NBADecides2016 was concluded to loud & credible claims of rigging.

@J_KGadzama, who was declared loser, sued @abmtwitt, the declared winner.

The case was concluded in 2019, long after Mr. Mahmoud had concluded his term

dnllegalandstyle.com/2019/court-dis…

Where the claims of rigging were #LoudAndCredible in #NBADecides2016, it was #ClearAsCrystal that #NBADecides2019 was #DaylightRobbery perpetrated with the arrogance of an #OrganisedCrime crime gang.

They did not bother to wipe fingerprints

opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2018/08/28/the…

What had changed, you may ask?

Well, 1 of #Nigeria's biggest banks, @myaccessbank, had engineered what amounted to a #hostiletakeover of @NigBarAssoc, becoming the sole banker to the Association.

@myaccessbank needed it's person at the till.

thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020…

With a network of 125 branches spread all over the country, @NigBarAssoc's membership is a veritable mine of data in an under-banked country & @myaccessbank, it's sole banker, has, therefore, emerged as the dispositive voter in the Association’s elections

thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020…

So, since 2018, @myaccessbank contrived to take control of @NigBarAssoc's election process, deploying a shadowy & complex network of corporate influence to rig the elections to a pre-determined outcome & eliminate any contest or independent leadership.

opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2018/07/18/cha…

In #NBADecides2016, @chams_plc part-owned by @MyAccessBank & chaired by a director of the bank supervised voting to elect the principal signatory to accounts of @NigBarAssoc with the Bank in a ballot in which a leading candidate was a director of the bank
opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2018/07/18/cha…

The rigging was transparent:
0807 410 7787 accounted for 41 votes;
0810 642 1702 accounted for 32;
0806 402 8401 accounted for 18.
Between them, these 3 put up 91 votes, i.e. 6 votes more than the 86-vote margin betwn the declared winner & the runner up

opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2018/08/28/the…

Simultaneously, 3 domains - openmail, airmail & firemail - were used to steal identities of voters & run a #SlushVote operation on behalf of Mr. Usoro, accounting for at least 1,004 of his "votes".

So, the man who was declared winner was fake.

opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2018/08/28/the…

U'd think an Association interested in its credibility wld #coursecorrect.

But @myaccessbank now has control of @NigBarAssoc thro its director 2nded to @NigBarAssoc as President.

So, it will implement the same script & #RigNBADecides2020

guardian.ng/features/law/h…

The Electoral Committee of @NigBarAssoc, #ECNBA, knows all of this & has been served ample notice but in the manner it's going about it, appears to be showing that it's part of the scheme or scam.

punchng.com/nba-elections-…

So, we return to where we started: the most tragic thing abt these charges from #NBADecides2018 is that the 2 suspects charged are minions.

The controlling minds in the crime & the beneficiaries are audaciously executing the same script in 2020.

vanguardngr.com/2020/07/fears-…