Legal team size: Seven

Major legal advisers/ external counsel: Ligomarc Advocates/ S & L Advocates/H & G Advocates/ENS Advocates

Country you’re based in: Uganda

Bio

Elewa Apamaku is a distinguished legal professional with over 15 years of experience in corporate and commercial law, with a particular strength in development finance, infrastructure, and the energy sector. He currently serves as legal manager at the only indigenous national Development Finance Institution in Uganda, Uganda Development Bank (UDBL), where he provides strategic legal oversight for complex transactions, institutional governance, and regulatory compliance, as well as ingenious work-out solutions.

His career has been defined by a commitment to legal innovation that supports inclusive growth and sustainable development. Elewa has played a central role in the structuring of high-impact investments across key sectors, including transactions to finance one of East Africa’s biggest infrastructure project in the oil and gas industry as well as clean energy solar farms and hydro power projects, e-mobility motor bike taxi, known locally as boda-bodas, solutions to ease the problem of carbon emissions, enabling the expansion of both clean water accessibility, and extension of the power grid, among others and thereby helping to ensure these projects are both legally sound and socially responsible.

He is currently part of a team of lawyers driving UDBL’s quest to identify, structure, and fund transformative projects in Uganda that aim to significantly enhance development impact and improve the livelihoods of Ugandans.

Known for his strength in governance advisory, Elewa has supported executive leadership and the board of directors of UDBL as a policy nank in fulfilling the government of Uganda’s development plan agenda as well as in promoting conscientious internal best practices, while also spearheading initiatives that have streamlined risk exposure and significantly reduced institutional legal disputes. Key to this is negotiating and structuring de-risking tools that have not only reduced the cost of borrowing but also reduced the number of non-performing loans.

He is also experienced in equity and credit structuring, legal risk management, stakeholder engagement, and policy formulation, consistently bringing a strategic, solutions-oriented approach to legal advisory in fast-evolving sectors.

He is at the forefront of providing legal advise in the negotiation and reviewing lending terms of lines of credit from foreign lenders, both sovereign and multilateral, that ensure the attainment of the objectives of the bank in availing sustainable financing to their Borrowers.

Elewa holds a master’s degree in Oil and Gas Law and a bachelor’s degree in Law. He is also certified in project risk management, legal frameworks for compliance, and advanced project planning. His work reflects a unique blend of legal depth, strategic insight, and a clear understanding of the intersection between law and national development. He is also an avid reader, both casual and professional material, and enjoys the great outdoors in his free time.