Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Barrister Olumide Akpata, has joined the Labour Party (LP).
Mr Akpata announced the development on Tuesday via a tweet on his official handle.
According to the former NBA president, he published the tweet to clear the air while verifying the conjecture among worried Nigerians after several people contacted him and asked whether it was genuine.
Akpata in his tweet, said that he was tired of complaining about the happenings in Nigeria and now wants to be a part of the solution rather than criticize people who are already making efforts. He wrote:
“Quite a number of people have called/messaged me to confirm the news, currently making the rounds, that I have joined a political party.
“Yes…I joined the @labourparty_ng in March this year and on Sunday I attended my first Ward Meeting at Oredo Ward 6, in Benin-City, where I was formally introduced to members of the Ward and presented with my Party membership card.”
“I decided to take the plunge and to try to be part of the solution rather than agonising continually over the problem.”
Mr Akpata whose motives for joining the party is not yet clear, prayed for a safe arrival at his desired destination.
“This was a major step for me and not one that I took lightly.”
“This, for me, is the start of a very important journey, and it is my prayer that I arrive safely at my destination,” he prayed.
Recall that the Peoples Democratic Party is the ruling party in Edo State, where the former NBA president hails from.
Also, the All Progressives Congress, which is the ruling party at the national level, has a significant influence on the state’s politics.
But the lawyer has chosen the LP which within the past few months, has been greatly transformed.
The labor party quickly grew into a formidable political party in Nigeria after Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria, joined the party in May last year and eventually became its 2023 presidential candidate.
For Olumide Akpata, after serving as president of the Nigerian Bar Association, the political sphere is another sector he finds pleasant to delve into, while contributing his quota to the development of the nation.
His sudden decision has raised concerns. But, Akpata is known for his peculiar qualities.
A peep into his profile reveals that Olumide Akpata was born on 7th October 1972, and had his early education in Warri after which he attended Kings College, Lagos, and later proceeded to the University of Benin (UniBen) where he studied law.
Prior to running for the NBA presidency, Olumide Akpata had served as a pioneer in the council of the NBA’s section on business law where he topped it off with a two-year stint as the chair of the NBA’s best know practice section. Before that, the legal practitioner had also served as the general secretary of the old students of the oldest public high school in the country, the Kings College Old Boys Association (KCOBA), during which he professionalized the association and put its operations on a sound footing.
In running for the presidency of the Bar, Olumide managed to turn all his headwinds into tailwinds, revealing a huge appetite at the Bar for generational inclusion and for an independent NBA. His campaign showed creativity, adaptability, and extraordinary savvy in digital constituency building and when the votes were counted in August 2020, he had bested all comers taking some 54% out of 18,256 votes cast.
Olumide could easily have entered the history books as the first NBA president to be inaugurated in a pandemic.
He inherited an association reeling from a credibility crisis, membership apathy, and financial challenges and in two years, has managed to transform the finances of the association leaving behind a stability fund that will guarantee its financial and professional independence.