A crisis appears to be imminent in the Ikeja branch of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) following a controversy over the elections of the executive officers of the branch.

The election which was conducted on 9 May led to the emergence of Monday Ubani as the chairman elect but his opponent, Yinka Farounbi and some other aggrieved members have approached the Lagos High court sitting in Ikeja to seek a nullification of the elections for alleged irregularities.

The courtroom of presided over by Justice Opeyemi Oke was dark due to a power outage but that did not stop the proceedings.

Justice Oke had been assigned the case after Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo, the first judge to whom it was assigned, disqualified herself from the suit.

In the suit, however, the claimant, Mr Faroubi had sued the winner of the polls, Mr Ubani, the electoral committee and the outgoing exco of the branch led by its Chairman, Adegbamigbe Omole.

He sought an order of interim injunction to restrain the swearing- in of the officers-elect, an order which Justice Taiwo granted before she subsequently disqualified herself from the matter.

At the resumed trial of the matter on Wednesday, the new trial judge, Justice Oke using a torchlight in the dark courtroom listened to all the parties and thereafter ordered them to file within 7days their preliminary objections and responses on points of law to the application filed by the claimant.

She also made an order for parties in the suit to maintain status quo, an order which the counsel have interpreted differently.

Meanwhile the tenure of the present exco of the branch will expire on 4 June while Justice Oke has fixed further hearing in the suit for 11 June to enable the court take together all the preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the court and the responses.