On Saturday, 9 August 2025, at Ikoyi Gardens & Vaults after a funeral service at St John’s Military Protestant Church, Bonny Cantonment, Victoria Island, Lagos, the remains of former Military Administrator of Bayelsa State, Navy Captain Omoniyi Caleb Olubolade will be laid to rest, three months after his death.
News of his death came as a shock wave when it broke on the morning of Sunday, 11 May 2025. The retired Navy Captain is said to have slumped while playing squash at Apapa, Lagos. He was reportedly rushed to the military hospital, and was soon confirmed dead.
Born into a humble homestead in Ipoti-Ekiti, Ijero Local Government Area of Ekiti State on 30 November 1954, Olubolade began life as a young farmer, precisely because his parents, Pa Olubolade and his young wife Deborah, worked on the family parcel of land. As a boy, Caleb Olubolade had enough of Yoruba culture, language and tradition built into him before he left home.
In 1960, at the age of six, he enrolled in the community school at Ipoti. Right afterward, he gained admission into the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, and soon proved himself amongst his peers when he proceeded to the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, in 1974. Four years later, he was to emerge as the most valuable graduating officer, picking up laurels, medals and plaques in recognition of his excellent performance.
Fascinated by prospects of travelling far and wide by sea and across oceans, the young cadet opted for the navy. Along with his batch of course mates, he was dispatched to the Britannia Royal Naval College, United Kingdom in 1975, and the Naval College of Engineering, India, in 1979, where he acquired lifetime skills.
Rising steadily from rank to rank, Olubolade was entrusted with several vital naval commands in the course of his career, demonstrating strong leadership traits all the way. On 9 June 1997, he was appointed by the Head of State, General Sani Abacha, to replace his fellow country man from the same Ekiti State, Navy Captain Oladipo Phillip Ayeni, as Military Administrator of Bayelsa State.
Olubolade is known to have laid the foundation for governance in the state, having put in place some of the most basic infrastructure to begin the process of development in the virgin state. Within a space of one year, he left a lasting legacy for successive governments in Bayelsa to build upon.
He is known to have constructed the sports complex in Yenagoa, the state capital, arguably his most massive achievement. The facility served his immediate successor, Colonel Paul Edor Obi, and five civilian governments to date, before Governor Douye Diri’’s recent pronouncement about building a new stadium.
Olubolade also built the first secretariat for civil servants, as well as the first set of housing units to accommodate the workforce from Port Harcourt, following the creation of Bayelsa State on 1 October 1996. His government is also remembered for building the first major roads in the state capital with interlocking tiles, working strictly by direct labour. Following Abacha’s demise, Olubolade was relieved of his appointment in July 1998.
In 1999, at the inception of the new democratic government under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the young captain was retired from the Nigerian Navy, following the President’s decision to disengage all military officers who had held any political offices during the military regime. Olubolade initially retired to a quiet life in Ipoti-Ekiti, but his spirit was still restless for more adventure.
In 2005, he ailed into political waters with the intention of seeking the ticket to contest for governorship of Ekiti State, on the platform of the defunct Action Congress. The party’s governorship primary in late 2006 produced Dr. Kayode Fayemi as the flag-bearer for the 2007 polls. Along with several other party leaders, Olubolade defected from the AC to the Peoples Democratic Party, protesting irregularities in the primary
Following the election of Chief Segun Oni as Governor of Ekiti State, Olubolade was appointed Chairman of Ekiti State Projects Monitoring Committee. In 2008, he moved one notch higher when he was appointed by President Umar Musa Yar’Adua as a member of the governing board of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State. He also served as a member of several other boards and parastatals.
On 6 April 2010, the retired Navy Captain was appointed Minister of Special Duties, when the then Acting President Goodluck Jonathan announced his first cabinet. Four months later, following a minor cabinet reshuffle, President Jonathan re-assigned him as Minister of State, Federal Capital Territory.
By all accounts, many former military colleagues rate Olubolade as a brilliant, patriotic and hard-working officer. Others who worked with him under civilian times remember him as a compulsive workaholic who never lost sight of his goals. He was also reputed to be a man who gave no room for ethnic or religious sentiments.
His varied experiences, first as a senior military officer and then as a public administrator, proved to be assets that came in very useful when he was appointed as Minister of Police Affairs. He held the office till the end of the Jonathan presidency in 2015.
As a mark of his affinity with the land and people of Bayelsa State, Olubolade chose to celebrate his 70th birthday anniversary to great acclaim in Yenagoa, only to pass away six months later. He is sorely missed by his beloved wife, Mrs Mopelola Olubolade, their children, and many friends, colleagues and goodwill associates from far and near. His story is recounted in The First Captain of Creek Haven, the first book on his tenure as Military Administrator of Bayelsa State, presented to him as a birthday gift by the author.
