{"id":26115,"date":"2020-08-11T10:48:33","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T09:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/?post_type=biography&p=26115"},"modified":"2020-08-11T11:06:53","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T10:06:53","slug":"akpata-olumide","status":"publish","type":"biography","link":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/biography\/akpata-olumide\/","title":{"rendered":"AKPATA, Olumide"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was born on 7 October 1972, and I had my early education in Warri, Delta State. I
\nthereafter attended King’s College, Lagos from where I proceeded to study Law at the
\nUniversity of Benin (UNIBEN). I graduated from UNIBEN in 1992, and I was called to the
\nNigerian Bar on 15 December, 1993.
\nI served in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), in Kano State, and upon the
\ncompletion of my service year, I joined the firm of Dr. Mudiaga Odje & Co. in Warri,
\nDelta State where I was extremely privileged to cut my teeth in legal practice under the
\ntutelage of the late, great sage: Dr. Mudiaga Odje, SAN, OFR, who was one of the
\nmost seasoned Litigators of his time. It was under Dr. Mudiaga Odje, SAN, that I learnt
\nthe rudiments of litigation and court room advocacy.
\nIn 1996, I relocated to Lagos and teamed up with my cousin, Oghogho Akpata, who
\nhad just set up the law firm, Templars, the previous year, after honing his skills in the
\nfirm of F. O. Akinrele & Co. under the leadership of the legendary Chief Frank
\nOdunayo Akinrele, SAN.
\nFrom 1996 to date, I have worked with Oghogho, and our colleagues at Templars, in
\nbuilding and sustaining a world class, multi-sectoral and full-service law firm which is
\nnow in the 25th year of its existence and consists of over 100 fee-earners, including two
\nSenior Advocates of Nigeria.
\nI am currently Senior Partner and Head of the Corporate & Commercial Practice Group
\nof Templars, which comprises the following practice areas: Mergers & Acquisitions;
\nCapital Markets; Corporate Law; Labour & Employment; Immigration;
\nTelecommunications, Media, Entertainment and Technology; and Regulatory
\nCompliance. However, in my over two decades at Templars, I have practised across the
\ndiverse areas in which we operate, and I have been privileged to lead or participate in
\nsome of the major groundbreaking transactions that have shaped commercial law
\npractice in Nigeria and indeed the Nigerian economy. Some of these include:
\n\uf0b7 advising the Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises on the restructuring and
\nunbundling of the now defunct state-owned power monopoly, National Electric
\nPower Authority, ultimately resulting in the several successor companies to
\nNEPA and the now largely privatised Nigerian power sector;
\n\uf0b7 advising on the acquisition of National Fertilizer Company of Nigeria by a
\ngroup of Nigerian investors in a US$152 million asset purchase transaction
\nunder the privatisation programme of the Federal Government of Nigeria;
\n\uf0b7 advising General Electric on the strategic acquisition that heralded the
\nestablishment of General Electric\u2019s oil and gas operations in Nigeria;
\n\uf0b7 advising American Tower Corporation on its US$1.05 billion acquisition of
\ntelecommunication towers and passive infrastructure business from Airtel
\nNetworks Limited;
\n\uf0b7 advising Azura Power West Africa Limited and its sponsors on the pioneering
\ndevelopment and financing of a circa US$1 billion greenfield 459MW
\nindependent power plant in Edo State, Nigeria;
\n\uf0b7 advising Google Inc. on the deployment of Google Street View in Nigeria which
\nis a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that promote
\ninteractive views along many streets in the world; and
\n\uf0b7 advising Diamond Bank on its merger with Access Bank PLC which resulted in
\nthe emergence of Africa\u2019s largest retail bank (by customers) and one of the
\nlargest lenders in Nigeria.
\nIn addition to my aforementioned roles at Templars, I have over the years also
\ndeveloped and deployed the requisite skills that are a must-have for the management
\nof people and resources in an organisation with a current head-count of over 150
\npeople and which operates out of different locations in Nigeria. In this regard, I have, at
\ndifferent times, superintended the activities of the Operations, Human Resources and
\nBusiness Development divisions of Templars.
\nI am deeply gratified that this model, which we at Templars continue to adopt in our
\napproach to legal practice, has paid off handsomely, resulting in our phenomenal
\ngrowth from a 4-man law practice in 1995-1996 to a tier one full-service law firm today.
\nIndeed, my experience at Templars, which essentially encompasses the bulk of my
\ncareer as a lawyer, has afforded me invaluable insight into, and an in-depth
\nunderstanding of, all aspects of legal practice in Nigeria.
\nI am a BAR Man…
\nI began participating in the activities of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), as soon as I
\njoined the law firm of Dr. Mudiaga Odje & Co., as a member of the NBA Warri Branch –
\nas it then was. Upon relocating to Lagos in 1996, I joined the NBA Lagos Branch.
\nI am a foundation member of the NBA-SBL, and I worked closely with the pioneer
\nChairman of the Section, Mr. George Etomi, and his team to operationalise the
\nSection after its inauguration in December 2004 by the then President of the
\nNBA, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN. I was also a member of the Planning Committee which
\norganised the very first NBA-SBL Conference that was held in Abuja in March 2006 and
\nwhich proved to be a transformational conference that set the NBA-SBL on its current
\ntrajectory.
\nMy active participation in the NBA-SBL led to my election, in January 2012, as Secretary
\nof the NBA-SBL Council. I was subsequently elected as Vice-Chairman in August 2014
\nand then as Chairman in August 2016, after which I handed over to the current
\nChairman, Seni Adio, SAN, in August 2018 albeit I remain a member of the Council.
\nMy two-year tenure as Chairman of the NBA-SBL was eventful and impactful. In
\nkeeping with its objectives of engendering the professional development of Nigerian
\ncommercial lawyers and raising the level of business law practice in Nigeria, the NBASBL, under my leadership and with the immense support of my colleagues in Council,
\nwas able to achieve, among other things, the following:
\n\uf0b7 expanding the frontiers of legal practice by creating several additional subjectmatter specific committees that were, and remain, actively focused on new
\nareas of legal practice with each committee organising periodic seminars and
\nother capacity building programmes across the country for members, with
\nfacilitators drawn from leading international law firms, Nigerian law firms and
\ncorporate organisations;
\n\uf0b7 organising two world-class NBA-SBL Conferences (2017 and 2018) at which
\nattendees had incisive and enriching sessions, knowledge exchange and
\nextensive networking opportunities with lawyers, clients and prospective clients;
\n\uf0b7 organising, in partnership with the International Bar Association, a free
\ntraining seminar for over 100 young lawyers on the fundamentals of
\nInternational Legal Business Practice;
\n\uf0b7 setting up SBL Clubs in six universities across the six geopolitical zones in
\nNigeria to expand the horizon of law students and enable them, at a
\nfoundational level, to develop appropriate interest in contemporary areas of law
\npractice;
\n\uf0b7 establishing a partnership with the National Assembly and the Nigerian
\nEconomic Summit Group, with support from the UK Department for
\nInternational Development (UK DFID), to create the National Assembly
\nBusiness Environment Roundtable (NASSBER) as a platform for the
\nlegislature and the private sector to engage, deliberate and take action on a
\nframework for improving the Nigerian business environment. That partnership
\nresulted in a comprehensive review of the institutional, regulatory, legislative
\nand associated instruments affecting businesses in Nigeria;
\n\uf0b7 collaborating with the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council
\non the ease of doing business in Nigeria which involved the review of extant
\nlaws and regulations and the monitoring of the productivity and response time
\nof Ministries, Departments and Agencies including the Corporate Affairs
\nCommission; and
\n\uf0b7 inaugurating the Corporate Counsel Committee for in-house counsel and
\nsetting up a Task Force led by Mr. Ayuli Jemide to determine the scope of
\nlegal work that is statutorily prescribed to be the exclusive preserve of Nigerian
\nlawyers and to work out modalities for enforcing such laws.
\nBARmanship Beyond NBA-SBL…
\nBesides my activities at the NBA-SBL, I am indeed extremely proud and grateful to have
\nbeen an integral part of the NBA in other capacities such as:
\n\uf0b7 participating actively in the NBA Section on Legal Practice where I served as an
\nofficer of the Law Firm Management Committee from 2010-2014;
\n\uf0b7 being an active member of the NBA Lagos Branch from 2005 till date where I
\nhave served on various Committees of the Branch, including as two-time
\nSecretary of the Building Committee – under the chairmanship of Alhaji Femi
\nOkunnu, SAN and Dr. Wale Babalakin, SAN in 2012 and 2016 respectively;
\n\uf0b7 serving the NBA, at the national level, in the following capacities: (i) Member,
\nNBA National Executive Committee from 2014 till date; (ii) Secretary, Technical
\nCommittee on Conference Planning for the 2015 NBA-AGC; (iii) Secretary,
\nTechnical Committee on Conference Planning for the 2016 NBA-AGC; (iv) CoChairman, Technical Committee on Conference Planning for the 2019 NBAAGC; and representing the NBA on the Council of the International Bar
\nAssociation (IBA), from 2014 to 2016;
\n\uf0b7 working closely with the then President of the NBA, Augustine Alegeh, SAN
\nand his team from, 2014-2016, on the following projects: (i) the reorganisation
\nand retooling of the NBA Secretariat for increased efficiency and productivity; (ii)
\nNBA\/Access Bank collaboration which resulted in a N250M per annum
\nsponsorship of the NBA’s activities by Access Bank; (iii) NBA\/Leadway Assurance
\ncollaboration which resulted in the NBA Members Insurance Scheme and which
\ncame at a significantly discounted premium and at no extra cost to members;
\nand (iv) fund-raising for the completion of the NBA House, Abuja which was
\neventually commissioned by His Excellency Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, GCON in
\nAugust, 2016;
\n\uf0b7 actively sponsoring and supporting branches of the NBA across the country on
\nvarious initiatives; and
\n\uf0b7 being a frequent speaker at several events organised by different branches of
\nthe NBA across Nigeria.
\nBarmanship Beyond Nigeria\u2026
\nMy interest in the advancement of the legal profession has also led me to participate
\nactively in the IBA where, besides representing the NBA on the Council of the IBA from
\n2014 to 2016, I serve\/have served in the following capacities:
\n\uf0b7 Vice-Chairman of the IBA Africa Regional Forum;
\n\uf0b7 Member of the IBA Presidential Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession;
\n\uf0b7 Member of the IBA Credentials Committee; and
\n\uf0b7 Officer\/Member of the IBA Anti-Corruption Committee.
\nMiscellany\/Other Endeavours…
\nI sit, in non-executive capacity, on the Boards of a number of private companies, some
\nof which I also chair. I am a member of several think-tanks, including the Nigeria
\nEconomic Summit Group (NESG) and the United Nations Nigerian Humanitarian Fund
\n(UN-NHF), of which I am a pioneer member.
\nI am, without a doubt, a gregarious person and when I am not advising on a
\ntransaction or attending a client meeting, I love to be in the company of my friends
\nand family or attending social events. I also love travelling and reading the biographies
\nof distinguished personalities.
\nI am a devout Christian and a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[3269,165],"writer":[],"class_list":["post-26115","biography","type-biography","status-publish","hentry","category-lawyer","category-legal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography\/26115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/biography"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography\/26115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26115"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=26115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}