Days before Olumide Akpata handed over the headship of Africa’s most influential network of legal practitioners, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), to his successor, Y. C. Maikyau, in August 2022, Professor of Law and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Chidi Odinkalu, wrote thus: “When he makes his exit next week after two very eventful years as president of the Nigerian Bar, Olumide Akpata deserves to hold his head very high. His will surely go down as one of the most consequential tenures in the leadership of the association since Alao Aka-Basorun.”
The piece, “Olumide Akpata and the burden of leadership”, was a celebration of the leadership acumen exhibited by this rather young lawyer who defeated two formidable Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) in July 2020 to become the first non-SAN President of the NBA in about 30 years.
It was no exaggeration. Akpata’s two-year leadership at the NBA did serve as the catalyst for moving the Association from one “reeling from a credibility crisis, membership apathy and financial challenges” to one that could boast of a respected public voice, with the promise of a more vibrant, dynamic, and vivacious future.
Bold, confident and surefooted, the NBA under Akpata’s leadership initiated and implemented numerous laudable initiatives, prominent among which is the Access to Finance Scheme, which saw the NBA sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Access Bank and First Bank to assist lawyers who may require loans to meet their working capital and operational needs. Structured to enable borrowings of up to N2 million by NBA members at an interest rate of 9 percent with a tenor of up to three years, the scheme was cash-backed by up to N1.5 billion linked to the NBA Stabilisation Fund to mitigate the risk of members not paying back the loans.
“We all know what access to finance can do for any business, and law is a business,” Akpata said after signing the MOU. “Access to finance will help increase the capacity of our members and help expand their businesses and do more.”
The Akpata-led NBA, among other things, also revitalized the NBA Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) to facilitate capacity building trainings for lawyers in various areas of legal practice, established a Security Agencies Relations Committee (NBA-SARC) to liaise with security agencies in addressing issues of harassment of lawyers while performing their professional duties, and set up a Remuneration Committee to examine options for addressing the concerns around poor remuneration of lawyers and review the models of law practice in place in the country with a view to proffering new models that assure of capacity to absorb and adequately compensate the growing number of lawyers.
Before going to lead the NBA, Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata, a 1992 Law graduate of the University of Benin, had built a reputation in commercial law practice at Templars, the law firm he joined in 1996 as a 23-year-old after cutting his teeth in the law firm of Dr. Mudiaga Odje (SAN). He helped to build Templars, alongside the founder Oghogho Akpata and other partners, from a four-man law practice in 1995-1996 to a world-class, multi-sectoral and full-service law firm with a workforce of about 100 lawyers.
Templars, according to Chambers and Partners, “is consistently rated as one of the leading and best organised full service commercial law firms in Nigeria”. Its clients include some of Nigeria’s largest banks, conglomerates, infrastructure developers, power generation and distribution companies, telcos, leading international funds and financial institutions, energy firms, hotel chains, shipping companies and investors. It has also served as counsel in some of the largest E&P deals, international commercial arbitrations, power projects and securities offerings in Nigeria.
At Templars, Akpata was Senior Partner and Head of Corporate and Commercial Practice Group – comprising practice areas like Mergers & Acquisitions; Capital Markets; Corporate Law; Labour & Employment; Immigration; Telecommunications, Media, Entertainment and Technology; and Regulatory Compliance – until he left the firm on 31 August 2023 to pursue his political interests.
While there, he led or participated in some of the major groundbreaking transactions that the firm was involved in. These include advising on the acquisition of National Fertilizer Company of Nigeria by a group of Nigerian investors in a US$152 million asset purchase transaction under the privatisation programme of the Federal Government of Nigeria; advising the Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises on the restructuring and unbundling of the now defunct state-owned electric power monopoly, National Electric Power Authority, ultimately resulting in the several successor companies to NEPA and the now largely privatised Nigerian power sector; and advising General Electric on the strategic acquisition that heralded the establishment of General Electric’s oil and gas operations in Nigeria.
He also advised on the American Tower Corporation’s US$1.05 billion acquisition of telecommunication towers and passive infrastructure business from Airtel Networks Ltd.; Azura Power West Africa Limited and its sponsors on the pioneering development and financing of a circa US$1 billion greenfield 459MW independent power plant in Edo State; Google Inc. on the deployment of Google Street View in Nigeria; and Diamond Bank on its merger Access Bank Plc.
It was no wonder that IFLR 1000 recognised Akpata as a leading Mergers & Acquisition lawyer in Nigeria while Chambers and Partners also recognised him “as having long experience in representing foreign clients” in his area of practice.
When he emerged as Chairman of the NBA Section on Business Law in 2016, no one was in doubt that Akpata knew his onions. He had been a member of NBA-SBL from its creation in 2004 with George Etomi as the pioneer Chairman. He would go on to acquit himself creditably. For instance, the National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable (NASSBER) was born during his two-year tenure. A platform for the legislature and the private sector to engage, deliberate and take action on a framework for improving the Nigerian business environment, NASSBER was the outcome of a partnership of the NBA-SBL, the National Assembly and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), with support from the UK Department for International Development (UK-DFID).
The NBA-SBL during this time also forged a partnership with the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), which involved the review of extant laws and regulations and the monitoring of the productivity and response time of MDAs including the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
Furthermore, the Akpata-led NBA-SBL set up SBL Clubs in six universities across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones to expand law students’ horizon and enable them, at a foundational level, to develop appropriate interest in contemporary areas of law practice; organised, in partnership with the International Bar Association, a free training seminar for over 100 young lawyers on the fundamentals of International Legal Business Practice; among others.
Of course, it was incumbent on the leadership to organise the annual business law conference, and Akpata did not compromise standards in delivering two world-class NBA-SBL conferences that featured incisive and enriching sessions and provided knowledge exchange and extensive networking opportunities for attendees, lawyers and non-lawyers alike. The themes of both conferences, ‘Law and the Changing Face of Legal Practice’ (2017) and ‘Bringing Down the Barriers: The Law as a Vehicle for Intra-Africa Trade’ (2018), reflected the SBL leadership’s understanding of the issues of the moment.
Unsurprisingly, on Saturday, 1 April 2023, at the first-ever African Heritage Concert & Awards (Afri-Heritage 23) held in Kigali, Rwanda, Akpata was presented with the African Legal Icon Award in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as a legal practitioner, his genuine service to humanity and his positive contributions to the growth and advancement of Africa with several other key landmark achievements when he served as NBA President.
In the same month, Akpata was honoured with an award of recognition for Legislative Reform Support at the 2023 PEBEC Awards Ceremony in Abuja. The organisers said Akpata and NBA-SBL were honoured for their landmark interventions in collaborating with the PEBEC secretariat to work on signature pieces of legislation, such as the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), 2020, the Business Facilitation Act, among other initiatives that have contributed to the ease of doing business in Nigeria and the country’s rise in the now rested World Bank Ease of Doing Business Rankings.
At the international level, Akpata represented the NBA on the Council of the International Bar Association (IBA) from 2014 to 2016, besides serving as Member of the IBA Presidential Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession, Vice-Chairman of the IBA Africa Regional Forum, Member of the IBA Credentials Committee, and Officer/Member of the IBA Anti-Corruption Committee.
A member of several think-tanks, including NESG and the United Nations Nigerian Humanitarian Fund (UN-NHF), of which he is a pioneer member, Akpata also sits, in non-executive capacity, on the Boards of a number of private companies, some of which he also chairs.
Outside of work, one is most likely to find Olumide Akpata, who describes himself as “a gregarious person”, in the company of friends and family, attending social events, travelling, or reading biographies of distinguished personalities.
