Olumide Akpata

Olumide Akpata was born in 1972 and had his early education in Warri, Delta State. He attended secondary school at Kings College Lagos and proceeded to the University of Benin in 1989 where he attained his LLB Degree. Upon completion, he attended the Nigerian Law School and was called to the Nigerian Bar on the in 1993.

After NYSC in Kano, he joined the firm of Dr Mudiaga Odje & Co. Upon completion, he relocated to Lagos to team up with Oghogho Akpata to establish Templars in 1996.

25years later, Olumide Akpata is a Senior Partner at Templars, a world class, multi-sectoral and full-service firm which consists of over 100 fee earners including 15 partners and 2 senior advocates. He heads the firm’s Corporate and Commercial Group.

He has worked on some of the major transactions which have shaped commercial practice in Nigeria. Some of these include: the unbundling of NEPA, the merger between Diamond Bank and Access Bank PLC which resulted in the emergence of Africa’s largest retail bank (by customers) and one of the largest lenders in Nigeria; and General Electric’s (GE) strategic acquisition that heralded the establishment of GE’s oil and gas operations in Nigeria. On account of his in-depth understanding of law, He was given the Business Icon of the year award by ESQ Law in 2018.

He is currently the 30th President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the largest bar association in Africa. Prior to his election as president, he served as a pioneer member of the NBA Section on Business Law (NBA-SBL) and worked with the founding Chairman, to operationalize the section after its inauguration in 2004. He has also been the Secretary, Vice Chairman and Chairman of the NBA-SBL in 2013, 2014 and 2016 respectively.

The NBA-SBL under his leadership, achieved, among other things, the following: setting up SBL Clubs in six universities across the six geopolitical zones; creating several additional subject-matter specific committees; organizing two world-class NBA-SBL Conferences (2017 and 2018); in partnership with the International Bar Association (IBA), a free training seminar for over 100 young lawyers; establishing a partnership with the National Assembly and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and collaborating with the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council on the ease of doing business in Nigeria.