We have just lost
one of our own in the early hours of Tuesday in UK. ....an Art connoisseur per
excellence, sports enthusiast, founder of Nkem Gallery and President of
"Art Gallery Owners of Nigeria (AGAN). CHIEF FRANK CHUKWUMA OKONTA
(Retired Director) FMIC. Adieu Chiefooo. We will surely miss you, but be rest
assured that your legacies will be rekindled.
Burial arrangements
will be announced by the family.
Frontline collector and gallery owner Chief Francis
Chukwuma Okonta is dead.
He died in London on Wednesday at 80 after a brief
illness, according to a family source.
The late Okonta, who was a retired civil servant played a
major role in the berthing of the nation’s most popular visual art festival Art
Expo in Lagos in 2008, in collaboration with Joe Musa led National Gallery of
Art, (NGA).
He was the pioneer President Art Gallery Owners
Association of Nigeria (AGAN), the umbrella body of gallerists that hosted the
expo for about three years before it was rested.
The late Okonta retired in 1999 from Federal Ministry of
Information as Deputy Director.
He was a civil servant of note that caught the attention
of the Presidency so much that he became member VISION 20:10 during the regime
of late General Sani Abacha.
He was Secretary-General, Nigeria Olympic Committee and
served as Special Assistant to the former Minister of Information, Senator Uche
Chukwumerije.
While at the Ministry of Information he was appointed
Chairman, Nigeria Boxing Association; President, Cycling Federation and
Secretary-General, Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC). Until his death he was
Chief Executive Officer Nkem Gallery, Lekki, Lagos
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