By Festus Ahon
UGHELLI — FORMER Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Chief Patrick Bolokor, has passed on. He died, Thursday, in his Kokori country home, Ethiope East Local Government Area, Delta State.

The late Chief Bolokor, was a Minister in the Second Republic from 1979-1983 in Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s administration.
Vanguard gathered that the late Bolokor was at a reconciliation meeting set up by Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, till midnight, Tuesday, at his country home and was expecting minutes of the meeting from the secretary, since he was the chairman of the reconciliation committee.

A source, who pleaded anonymity, said the committee was setup by the party stakeholders in the Delta Central Senatorial District, adding that the committee was charged with the responsibility of reconciling aggrieved members of the party in the senatorial district.

The cause of his death was unknown at press time. Reacting to his death, two chieftains of the PDP in the state, Olorogun John Oguma and Dr Ebenezer Okorodudu, described his death as shocking and painful.

Olorogun Oguma said Bolokor contributed greatly to the political wellbeing of the Urhobo, Delta and Nigeria in general, adding that Urhobo people and Deltans as a whole would miss him.

One-time commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Dr Ebenezer Okorodudu, described his death as shocking and painful.

Saying that his death was a great loss to the Urhobo ethnic nationality and the state in general, Okorodudu noted that his death had created a big vacuum in the polity of the Urhobo nation.