For our special series on the Las Vegas mayoral race, executive producer Sonja Cho Swanson interviews mayoral candidate Kola Akingbade, a proud Nigerian-born American with a background in engineering, the ministry, and real estate. They talk about his history of running for office in Nigeria, how he plans to “offset the offseason” in Las Vegas with economic development, and how legalizing prostitution could help tackle homelessness.
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Sonja: Our Las Vegas mayoral race coverage continues. Today on City Cast Las Vegas, we've got mayoral candidate Kola Akimbade here with us. Kola is a proud Nigerian born American with a background in engineering, the ministry, and real estate, and we chat about his campaign and his vision for Las Vegas.
It's Saturday, May 4th. I'm Sonia Cho Swanson, and here's what Las Vegas is talking about.So, Cola, I saved the easiest question for the first question. Tell us who you are and why you're running for mayor.
Kola: Okay. Thank you very much. So my name is Koola a and you know, uh, according to your intro, you know, I was born in, I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, but I've lived in the United States for 44 years, you know, and, uh, I'm married, happily married, man. You know, I have four, you know, I have, I have six accomplished children, and.
You know, uh, I'm not in this race because there's anything that was broken. No. You know, that's not why I'm not here to fix anything at all. What we have in Las Vegas is actually working, but it's just that it needs to work better and the prosperity needs to reach everyone.
Sonja: Okay. Well, uh, I did read a profile, uh, that was written up about you on Sharp Edge News, uh, and I was kind of surprised to hear that you most recently ran for president of Nigeria in 2019. So what happened with that campaign?
Kola: Yeah, the campaign, the campaign was fantastic. Yeah, I did run for president of Nigeria and I was not defeated. But you know, so much corruption in that part of the world, you know, a presidential candidate, normally, they probably would spend somewhere around a billion dollars on campaigning. You know, I spent probably about a million and a half of my own money.
You know, yeah, it was crazy. So, you know, their money defeated us, you know, and, and that, uh, you know, Everything that we went through in life, it's pretty much what, what set us up and gave us the experience for today. You know, that was what happened. About a week before the election, these guys, you know, these retired army generals, they threw out, You know, hundreds of millions of dollars on the street.
I can't match that, you know,
Sonja: I see. So did you end
Kola: that was what happened.
Sonja: uh, Withdrawing your, candidacy or,
Kola: Yes, I, you know, I end up withdrawing the candidacy. You know, actually we saw this earlier and what I did is, you know, I decided to run for senate instead because I stay at the opportunity. And none of that makes any difference. You know, these guys have so much, so much, so much money. And that was what happened actually.
Sonja: I see. Okay. So, so in the five years since then, since 2019, why have you returned your focus to Las Vegas? I mean, that's, that's a pretty big shift, you know, geographically in focus and scope in terms of like where you want to make a difference. Why come back to Las Vegas?
Kola: Well, you know, I live in Los Angeles. I live in LA for 38 years, right? You know, actually, I love Las Vegas. I've always been in Las Vegas. My family loves Las Vegas. My wife loves Las Vegas. We had a home here in Las Vegas. So, pretty much, you know, my wife and I, you know, we decided Let's make Las Vegas our home and that's what we intended to do.
Actually retiring Vegas. Look, so yeah, I'm not going anywhere, you know, this is where I am and, and, and, uh, it's just that as much I love Las Vegas. This is my favorite city on earth. And I just thought that we can do a lot more than we're doing right now. Even though I love a current male, you know, Carolyn Goodman, I think she's been masterful actually, you know, but she's come down.
Someone have to replace her right now. And I, you know, I'm going to tell you why Las Vegas, they have this off season thing that they have in Vegas, you know, you know, around, you know, sometime of the year.
Sonja: get into that because I remember that's one of your campaign platform issues, but I'm really curious about, you know, you said you moved here pretty recently, so around what year did you move here and, and
Kola: Well, I lived here. I lived there briefly. I lived there for maybe like about three years. I'm a broker, real estate broker salesperson here in Nevada. I've been a licensee here for probably like about 11 years. So I've been selling homes out here for a long time, you know, and this just used to be a second home for us.
So we move it finally, you know, Like about three years now.
Sonja: I see. Okay. And what have you, what have you done, what have you done since, um, moving to Las Vegas in the last three years to really familiarize yourself with the issues in Las Vegas that people care about here?
Kola: Man, you know, uh, work, meet people like in the neighborhood, work up and down, talk to people, try to hear from the citizens themselves. What is it that you would like for your For your mayor to, to be able to make happen for you, what are you expecting from the city government? What are the main issues, you know, what directly affects your personal lives, you know, and what changes would you like to make?
And so this is what my wife and I and my team We've been canvassing, you know, we've been on the ground asking all these questions and that's the reason and that's why we were able to come up with a platform that we have. See, a platform is very comprehensive. You know, I know you've heard that the rich gets richer, the poor, yeah, the poor gets poorer.
I don't believe in that. See, I don't believe in that. I believe that it's possible for the rich To continue to maintain their wealth while the poor and the middle class can build legacy for themselves.
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Sonja: Well, let's talk about that platform then. So let's start with your top issue. So what do you think should be the top priority for the new mayor, whether it's you or someone else, whoever the new mayor is, what, what do you think the top priority for the Las Vegas mayor should be?
Kola: Economy. You know, Las Vegas is a brilliant place. Come on, you know, people come to Vegas, they never want to go back home. I've been coming to Vegas for like 35, 38 years. Every time we come to Vegas, do we have to go back home? You know, and our economy, you know, obviously, like I said earlier, it's not like I'm trying to fix a broken system here, right?
You know, but what it is, is I don't understand why the whole city goes in this off season. I just don't, you know, so I had to study that. When the economy is bad, whenever the economy is bad, You know, if I may ask you right now, and you have to save money, what do you think is the first thing that people, you know, how you gonna, how you gonna save money?
The first thing, people, with the entertainment. You cut down the entertainment. And that goes for me, that goes for you, that goes for everyone around the world. When we have to save money, You know, we, we don't come to Vegas
Sonja: we saw that during the pandemic for sure.
Kola: were all 2007, you know, during the world economic crisis, the meltdown, nobody's coming to Vegas, you know, because no one has the money to come to Vegas for years, Vegas was just on a total shutdown.
Not only that. During the pandemic, you know, and 2007, when the inflation is so bad, of course, all the cities in all the states all around the world, we all feel the same thing, but everyone recovers. But Las Vegas, this beautiful city, it's gone. The devastation lingers. It lingers here after Los Angeles recovered, after New York recovered, Atlanta, Miami, Las Vegas.
It takes us another couple of years before we recover the whole city in the off season and the reason is because our economy is not diversified. You say, yeah, we put all of our eggs. In that one basket, you know, we, you know, Vegas, our dominant industry is gaming, right? And we're the king of gaming here, but we like to call ourselves the, the, the, the entertainment capital of the world, but there are too many holes.
In our entertainment, if you hear me giving praises to Carolyn Goodman, you know, our mayor today, it's because she's able to bring, you know, you know, professional sports to Las Vegas and she's able to do some other things like that. Can you think about it? Disney Las Vegas. Disney Las Vegas. We need a theme park here.
You know, aquarium, you know, big business. We have to be able to attract big businesses from coming, I mean, for coming over here and that's what it
Sonja: and aquariums still sounds like tourism to me. So, what other ideas would you have for diversifying the economy?
Kola: Well, you know, we must be able to bring in big businesses, right? You know, uh, I mean, for example, Delta operates, Delta operates out of, I believe, you know, Atlanta. You know, I mean, uh, uh, you know, and, and United, United Airlines operates out of Houston. What Fortune 500 companies, you know, operate out of Vegas?
We don't have that. Uh, look, how about technology? I would argue that 50 percent of all the work in the world today is coming, is running through technology. How much of that do we have in, you know, in Las Vegas? Pretty much. Nothing, right? So we need technology, we need big businesses, but our dominant industry is tourism, right?
We have to strengthen up on that. There's too many holes
Sonja: Mm hmm. So, so, Las Vegas, the city and policymakers and, you know, officials have been talking about diversifying the Las Vegas economy for a long time. And as you mentioned, others such as current Mayor Carolyn Goodman have made some strides in that, in that area. So what would you specifically do as mayor of Las Vegas to help achieve those goals?
Kola: Well, you know, I'm going to pretty much focus on the areas that will take away that Las Vegas economy, it's undependable, right? You know, it goes on season, off season, so we have to find a way to offset that. That off season, you know, uh, you know, again, you know, uh, how do we diversify that? We need technology here for sure.
You know, you know,
Sonja: of what policies as mayor would you promote to help bring some of these other industries in?
Kola: we're going to, we're going to work on incentives, incentives for, you know, for all these companies, you know, to come in to bring this high paying jobs, high paying jobs to Las Vegas, you know, and, and I, you know, I believe that, you know, if an entertainment, you know, like in the entertainment industry, like a movie studios.
You know, again, we are beginning to see that coming in right now, but we cannot have a situation where a star come here, you know, for, you know, for residency, they stay for three months, and when it's the off season, they go back home. And then when they want to record their next album, they go to New York or they go to Los Angeles, right?
And that's what we're going to do. We're going to, you know, tax incentives for, for businesses that will bring, you know, high paying jobs to Las Vegas.
Sonja: Well, let's, let's talk about homelessness for a second because the city of Las Vegas operates the Courtyard, uh, and so I'm curious if you would continue the, some of the programming that's happening at the Courtyard or if you would change course or introduce new programs. What would your plan for homelessness be?
Kola: Well, we are going to continue with the current program that they have, right? Let's face it. There's never going to be enough funding to address that, that issue. I don't know what the, what the budget is. It's never going to be enough. So what has been happening, you roped Peter to pay Paul, and then to continue robbing Peter to pay Paul, where Paul will never have enough funding because, you know, it's working on borrowed money.
Then when is Peter gonna operate on its own? So for me, the, the way that we deal with that is It's basically to legalize prostitution in Las Vegas.
Sonja: interesting. Is that part of your platform?
Kola: Yes. That is, you know, that is very much part of my platform, you know,
Sonja: so tell me more. How is that connected to homelessness?
Kola: because we are never going to have enough funding. To really address the issue of homelessness, right? So we're always going to be in a position situation where we'll borrow from this program, we'll borrow from that program, and then we would work. You know, with the homelessness. Not all these people are hopeless, right?
And it's not a one solution fits all. They all need, we have to meet them where they are. They all have to be helped individually. But where's the money gonna come from? The, whatever the budget is, it's never going to be enough. Ah, so I've heard some people are advocating they said tax the casinos for the, for the, you know, homeless tax, right?
Oh, you know, I mean, that's one option. Or they can tax you and I, right? You know, we can levy a massive tax on you. You and I, you know, there's another, another way, right?
Sonja: proposing legalizing prostitution and then taxing prostitution. Is that, is that part of your proposal?
Kola: Of course we have to tax prostitution. You know, look, look, right now, you know, let's not act like, like this is out of the ordinary, right? Ten counties in Nevada already have sex workers and it's legal. You know, the state
Sonja: in Las Vegas, too, absolutely. Just, you know, not all of them are operating legally at the moment. So,
Kola: yeah, well, well, but, uh, uh, yes, uh, but, yeah, but, you see, that is the problem, right? We have all this, you know, Little guys, they call them whatever, they call them pimps, whatever. This guy's collecting 5, 000 a night. That's our money! I want, you know, Las Vegas, we are living too much money on the table. We are living too much money on the table and I smell you one of the first things that I will you know that You know that I'm gonna walk on this like all that money on the table.
No, no, no That money belongs to Las Vegas, you know, look look 25 years ago 10 years ago Cannabis. It used to be Marijuana, right? But now they have a sexy name for it. They call it Cannabis. It used to be illegal. People go to jail 25 years, 35 years for that. Today, it's legal. What do we know now? What did we find out 5, 10 years ago that we didn't know? 30 years ago, we, we knew all about the health benefits, but everybody, no one wants to do that. You know, they don't want to, you know, it's like, oh, you know, it's drugs, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Eventually the government said, you know what, all these drug dealers, all these billions, billions of dollars just going around.
The government's like, we want that money,
Sonja: That's That's certainly part of the argument for, for legalizing cannabis, for sure.
Kola: of course,
Sonja: I have, I have one last question for you, Cola, and this is kind of a fun one, I hope. Uh, so, as mayor, you can summon, yes, you can summon pretty much anyone you want for a long lunch. You can call them up and they're going to be like, yes, I will have lunch with you.
So who is, who is the first person that you would ring up? To have a long talk with about what's going on, what's the pulse of the city, who's that one person, that first person you're calling?
Kola: the current mayor, I'm
Sonja: I should say they can't be named Goodman. They can't be named Goodman. No, no, no, no. You can't, you can't call a Goodman.
Kola: It's, it's you. I'm going
Sonja: No, can't, can't call a City Cast producer either. Those are the two you can't call. So anyone else besides a Goodman or a City Cast producer, who would you be calling?
Kola: Well, you know, I, you know, I probably would call, uh, uh, uh, uh, Steve, Steve Wynn. You know, yeah, I mean, I love him, you know, it's, uh, You know, uh, I, you know, I kind of adopt him, you know, it doesn't probably doesn't know. I kind of adopt him like, you know, you know, you know, like my Godfather, you know, I love the guy, you know, I, you know, I love his policies, how he move around, you know, like his swag, you know, his knowledgeable experience and all that good stuff.
So, you know, since I can't call you first, since I can't call Caroline. You know, and I'm certainly going to call Steve Wynn.
Sonja: Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us, Cola. We really appreciate you talking with us today.
Kola: Thank you for having me.
Sonja: That's all for today here on CityCast Las Vegas.
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