Ezekiel Awojide
Navy Capt Omoniyi Caleb Olubolade, erstwhile administrator of Bayelsa State and former Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is dead.
Olubolade reportedly died Sunday evening in Lagos shortly after he slumped at a Lawn-Tennis play-time.
Olubolade, born on November 30,1954 was a former military administrator of Bayelsa State.
He was also appointed minister of special duties on April 6, 2010, when acting president Goodluck Jonathan announced his new cabinet.
Olubolade was born at Ipoti-Ekiti in Ijero LGA of Ekiti State. He was commissioned into the Nigerian Navy in 1974 and attended courses including the Britannia Royal Naval College, UK, in 1975 and the Naval College of Engineering, India, in 1979.
On 9 June 1997, he was appointed military administrator of the newly created Bayelsa State by the military government of General Sani Abacha.
As governor, on May 4 1998, he established the Bayelsa State Council for Arts & Culture.
Olubolade retired from the Nigerian Navy in 1999 at the start of the new democratic regime.
In April 2006, Olubolade was briefly arrested during a House of Representatives by-election in the Ekiti South II Federal Constituency.
He was an aspirant to become the Action Congress candidate for governor of Ekiti State in the April 2007 elections.
Later in 2006, he defected to the People’s Democratic Party.
He was appointed chairman of the Ekiti State Project Monitoring Committee by Governor Segun Oni.
Olubolade was a front-runner in the Ekiti state governorship race 2014 election under the Peoples Democratic Party. Olubolade formerly declared his governorship ambition on Saturday, February 22, 2014, at the PDP state secretariat Ado Ekiti.
