Mr Olumide Akpata, former chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and governorship aspirant for the Labour Party (LP) in Edo State, has slammed people who are unhappy with his massive financial assistance for the party, reminding them that politics is capital intensive all over the world.
He denied that rumors about his being supported by Governor Godwin Obaseki were true.
Such insinuations, according to Akpata, were the product of unhappy Labour Party politicians and aspirants.
He also slammed the Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu, for ascribing the mantra of a “homeboy” to himself, saying such a claim pointed to the fact that there is doubt about Shaibu’s ‘homeboy-ness’.
The LP aspirant said those jittery over his financial war chest and preparedness to work and emerge the party’s standard bearer should not that he had worked for 30 years as a legal practitioner and had paid his dues.
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The lawyer-turned politician spoke at the weekend on aside line interview as a special guest of honour and award presentation at the state branch of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Week.
On the issue of being a money bag, he retorted, “Money bag? I have been a lawyer for 30 years, I have worked only as a lawyer, maybe a few businesses on the side that have come out by the fact that I’m a lawyer. So, I have paid my dues and I think I have succeeded and I’m one who the Americans will say, ‘I put my money where my mouth is’.
“If you believe in something and when you are able to spend your treasure on what you believe in, that is when you can be taken seriously and these people who say I’m a money bag have been spending before I came to the scene, so I wonder what the issue really is,” he said.
(Leadership)