With the arrest of Uyiekpen Giwa-Osagie, a lawyer and aide of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, earlier in the week, the camp of the former vice president has been in disarray. Uyi, as he is popularly known, is a silent force behind the former Vice President. One of Uyi’s runners was allegedly caught with $2million cash, allegedly meant for the prosecution of the presidential election.
If the Atiku camp has rallied and re-strategised on how to raise money elsewhere, his close friend and partner, Supo Shasore, SAN, and former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Lagos State under former Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, has known no sleep. Supo and Uyi are partners at the Africa Law Practice, a Nigeria-based, Africa business-focused firm that prides itself as delivering the very best of African legal and advisory services.
He was in their Onikan, Lagos office when Uyi was arrested like a common criminal and taken away by the EFCC. Momentarily perplexed, Supo has however stepped up to the plate, jettisoning every other thing, professional, personal and marital, while pulling all the strings he can to get Uyi released.
Even his governorship ambition has been pushed back. Supo was the choice of Fashola as a potential successor in Lagos State in 2015 but the godfather of Lagos politics, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, had a different opinion. He wanted Akinwunmi Ambode and eventually had his way. Fashola did the little he could to push his own candidate but he would soon fizzle out of contention.
A few years later, when Ambode ran into issues with the same people who brought him, Supo’s name came up again and he resurfaced in the media talking about the essence and essentials of getting Lagos to the Promised Land. The party decided to go with Babajide Sanwoolu instead. While Supo may be biding his time for the future, that ambition is now second fiddle as he battles to extricate his friend from the grip of the law.
