Matilda Omonaiye/
One-time Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), retired Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Chris Olakpe is dead.
NewsmakersNG learnt from family sources that Olakpe who had also served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) died last night after he was rushed to the hospital following a brief illness.
He was 66.
Olakpe was the second FPRO appointed as LASTMA boss, who died shortly after leaving office.
The first was retired CP Young Arebamen.
He has also lengthened the list of dead ex-FPROs which includes the late CP Haz Iwendi.
They were all popular with journalists and they left indelible footprints on the sands of time.
Born on June 5, 1954, the late Olakpe, who hailed from Isoko, Delta State, enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force as a Cadet Assistant Superintendent on July 17, 1980. He was an alumnus of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Plateau State and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in Enugu State where he bagged a BSc in Sociology and Anthropology. He also attended the Lagos Baptist Academy, Obanikoro.
He had served as the Bayelsa State Commissioner of Police and the CP in charge of the Police Anti-Bomb Squad. He was a member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians, USA, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, USA.
In 2005, the nation mourned with Olakpe whose child was among the students of Ignatius Loyola Jesuit College who perished in the Sosoliso Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9 carrying 110 passengers and crew from Abuja to Port Harcourt.
Known as a jolly good fellow in social circles, Olakpe was Chife XYZ Nkassu in the Kegite Club and he held a traditional chieftaincy title of Afituwou of Irri Kingdom in Delta State.
