10 Gospel Preachers and Pastors You Didn’t Know were OAU Alumni

 

Faith Born on the Great Ife Campus: Which of these notable gospel preachers and pastors did you know attended Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU)?

Several of Nigeria’s most influential gospel ministers are alumni of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife - including Apostle Femi Lazarus, Pastor Philip Olubakin, Apostle Segun Obadje, Bishop Bimbo Animashaun, Pastor Funke Obadje, and the General Overseer of the RCCG, Pastor E.A. Adeboye, who completed his undergraduate degree in Mathematics at what was then the University of Ife. The “Citadel of Learning” has not only produced Nigeria’s academic elite, but it also quietly nurtured - and still nurtures some of the country’s most powerful voices for the gospel.

Introduction

Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Osun State, fondly called “Great Ife” by its alumni, is one of Nigeria’s most prestigious Federal universities. Founded in 1961, it is renowned for its sprawling campus, its history of vibrant student unionism, and its consistent production of Nigeria’s professional elite across law, medicine, engineering, and the sciences. 

But there is a dimension of OAU’s legacy that rarely gets told - one that cannot be found in any convocation brochure or alumni magazine. On those same tree-lined roads, in those same lecture halls, in the hostel rooms and fellowship centres of Great Ife’s campus, something else was quietly happening: God was calling men and women to ministry. He was shaping the theological instincts, the intellectual frameworks, and the spiritual hunger of people who would go on to preach to hundreds of thousands across Nigeria and the world.

This article is about those people. It is about the gospel ministers, preachers, and pastors whose paths to pulpits, microphones, and television cameras all passed through Ile-Ife. Some of them walked the same campuses while they were students. Some of them prayer-walked those same roads with no bus fare to their name. Some of them sat in fellowships on that campus and heard a call they have been answering ever since.

Here, in honour of God’s work at Great Ife, are the gospel preachers you may not have known were OAU alumni.

1. Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye

Before we get to the ministers who came of age in the modern era of Nigerian gospel ministry, it is worth beginning with one whose time at Great Ife is already a matter of history, and whose legacy is arguably the most expansive of any OAU alumnus alive.

General Overseer Enoch Adejare Adeboye — the head of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, one of the largest evangelical denominations in the world, completed his undergraduate degree in Mathematics at what was then the University of Ife (now OAU). The Nigeria Civil War interrupted his studies at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and he completed his first degree at the University of Ife, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 1967. 

Pastor Adeboye first received his mathematics degree on the same Ile-Ife campus where many of the ministers in this article would later walk decades later. His trajectory from a first-class academic career to becoming General Overseer of the RCCG in 1981 is one of the most frequently told stories in Nigerian Christendom.

Great Ife can count among its alumni the man who has arguably done more to spread evangelical Christianity across Africa than any other living person. That is a heritage worth knowing.

2. Pastor Faith Abiola Oyedepo

There is a detail in the story of Pastor Faith Oyedepo that tends to be mentioned briefly and passed over quickly, but it carries enormous weight. Pastor Faith Abiola received her primary and secondary education in Kwara State, after which she proceeded to get her tertiary education at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

And it was there, on the same Ile-Ife campus, that one of the most consequential relationships in Nigerian gospel history quietly began. The couple met in 1976 while they were still undergraduates at the University of Ile-Ife and Kwara State Polytechnic respectively. Two young people, both finding their way in faith and academics, crossing paths on the same campus. One would go on to found one of the largest church denominations on the African continent, and the other would stand beside him every step of the way - not as a background figure but as a minister, author, educator, and one of the most respected Christian women leaders Nigeria has produced.

Born on 5th February 1958 as Florence Abiola Akano, she gave her life to Christ as a teenager in 1976, the same year she and Bishop Oyedepo met. Her time at the University of Ife was therefore not just an academic season; it was the seedbed of her salvation, her marriage, and her ministry - all planted on the same campus within the same period.

Today, Pastor Faith Oyedepo serves as a senior pastor in Living Faith Church Worldwide, Chairman of the Education Commission of Living Faith Church, and a prolific author whose books have shaped the spiritual lives of thousands of Christian women. From an undergraduate who met her destiny in Ile-Ife, OAU shaped the life of  a woman and the First Lady of a ministry that spans over 300 cities worldwide. You can read Pastor Faith Oyedepo’s full biography here.

3. Apostle Femi Lazarus

There is a story that Apostle Femi Lazarus tells about his time at OAU that has stays with many who have heard it. When he received an award at the Royal Awards and Leadership Summit organised by the Ooni of Ife Foundation in January 2020 (presented by His Imperial Majesty Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi on the OAU campus), he wrote: “The land I had to wait on God to send help to be able to buy pure water worth 5 naira, the same land where I have had to ‘prayer walk’ from campus to campus gate because there was no 20 naira to take bus, God brought honour from that same land.”

Growing up, Apostle Femi Lazarus attended ECWA in Kano State, Nigeria, and proceeded to study at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, where upon his graduation he started on his journey into ministry.  He is a public health professional by training, having graduated from the prestigious OAU in Ile-Ife. 

His salvation story, as he tells it, was completely unexpected. He returned from a night party, and had a conversation with his father that the Holy Spirit used to draw him to Christ. From that moment, the trajectory of his life changed permanently.

Apostle Femi Lazarus’ ministry began during his time as a student pastor at Obafemi Awolowo University. On those same roads where he once had no bus fare, he began to preach. In the same campus environment where financial pressure was constant, he developed a prayer life and a theological conviction that would later birth one of Nigeria’s most influential young ministries.

He founded the Sphere of Light Church which grew into multiple campuses across Ibadan, Abuja, Ife, and the United Kingdom - and later rebranded it as Light Nation Church. He is the principal of the International School of Ministry, through which he has trained ministers from over 30 nations. His training in public health informs the church’s systematic approach to social welfare, prioritising measurable impact and holistic well-being. 

The man who prayer-walked from the campus gate has walked into honour and now pastors a Global church with branches even on the same campus and city - through the LA Church student initiative and Light Nation, Ile-Ife. Great Ife is still his ground. You can read Apostle Femi Lazarus’ full Biography here.

4. Pastor Philip Olubakin -The Lawyer Who Chose the Courtroom of the Spirit

When you hear Pastor Philip Olubakin minister - whether through the precision of his Bible teaching, his storytelling, the logical structure of his sermon outlines, or the way he builds a theological argument, you are hearing a lawyer. And not a casual one.

Pastor Philip Olubakin was trained as a lawyer at the Obafemi Awolowo University, and he is passionate about helping believers walk in the reality of the supernatural through faith and leading souls to the knowledge of Christ.  Born on 15th December, Pastor Oladelemi Philip Olubakin is an author, preacher, pianist, songwriter, artist and a sound teacher of God’s word. He attended Igamode Grammar School in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria, and thereafter proceeded to study Law at the Obafemi Awolowo University, and then attended the Nigerian Law School, Enugu Campus. 

His time at OAU was not merely academic. It was in the context of a Christian fellowship environment, shaped by the kinds of campus ministries that have long been active at Great Ife such that his spiritual foundations were deepened and his theological convictions sharpened. He emerged from Ile-Ife as something more than a lawyer: a man with both the intellectual equipment and the spiritual calling to teach God’s word with rigour and authority.

In March 2019, Pastor Philip founded the Supernatural Life Church (SLC) following divine direction while serving as a choir member. The church began in Abuja with just seven members - himself, his wife, three youth corps members, his sister-in-law, and a friend.  From those seven, the Supernatural Life Church has grown into a thriving congregation with a strong digital presence and a congregation that spans multiple cities.

He is also the convener of the Wind of the Spirit and 28 Days with the Holy Spirit, deep spiritual meetings that carry the same quality of theological seriousness he developed in those law lectures at OAU.

The discipline of legal thinking did not leave him. It shows in every sermon. Great Ife trained a lawyer. The Holy Spirit commissioned an apostle. Nigeria received both. You can read Pastor Philip Olubakin’s full biography here.

5. Apostle Segun Obadje

Of all the ministers in this article, Apostle Segun Obadje’s OAU connection is perhaps the deepest - not merely as a student who passed through, but as a faculty member who gave his professional years to the institution before making the most consequential resignation of his life.

Apostle Segun Obadje is a registered builder by profession with a PhD in Building Structures. He was a lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, before resigning into full-time ministry.  He has a Doctorate degree from the Department of Building, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria, where he retired as a lecturer into full-time ministry. 

Picture the scene: a man with a doctorate, a lecturing position, a professional career with all its attendant security and respectability, at one of Nigeria’s most prestigious universities - and the clear conviction that God was calling him away from all of it. The resignation from OAU was not a sideways career move, but a complete reorientation of life.

What he built after that resignation proves the move was divinely engineered. He is the President of Segun Obadje Teaching Ministries (SOTM) and the Set-Man of God’s Love Tabernacle International Church (GLT) worldwide, with extensions across Nigeria, Ghana, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, with its international headquarters in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria. 

His teaching ministry which is characterised by the same intellectual rigour a Building PhD demands, spans almost three decades and has been accompanied by documented testimonies of healing, signs, and wonders. He has authored several books including *Zoe: Realities of the Divine Life*, *The Hidden Man of the Heart*, *Realities of the New Man in Christ*, *The Covenant Power of the Blood of Jesus*, and *The Business of Soul Winning*.  His devotional, The Leverage, has been distributed free of charge with over 650,000 copies across Nigeria and beyond.

From OAU Lecturer to Global Apostle, the man who once lectured on building structures now builds churches and ministers across five countries. His connection to OAU as a student, doctoral researcher, and lecturer, is one of the most substantial of any minister in this list.

And in a full-circle moment, God’s Love Tabernacle (GLT) Ile-Ife Extension (which is located just directly opposite the University’s Main Gate) honoured its members who emerged as the best-graduating students as OAU held its 48th Convocation Ceremony in December 2024, with Apostle Segun Obadje himself presenting awards to first-class graduates on the campus where he once lectured.  The professor came back. As a shepherd. You can read Apostle Segun Obadje’s full biography here.

6. Bishop Bimbo Animashaun

When you study sociology, you study human beings, how they organise themselves, what systems shape them, how communities form and fracture, what people believe and why. It is, in many ways, perfect training for a man God would call to preach the gospel to nations, mentor young ministers, and build a ministry with a mandate to feed people spiritually.

Bishop Bimbo Animashaun graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria, where he studied Sociology.  As a sociology student, he literally studied the world to save it. What the sociology lecture hall gave him - an understanding of human society, of what people are searching for, of how communities work  - became tools in the hands of a man carrying an apostolic mandate.

Born on June 4th, Bishop Bimbo Animashaun is a preacher, teacher, apostle and the Founder and General Overseer of Feeding Centre Bread of Life Outreach, popularly known as Feeding Centre. Called with a specific mandate to feed the nations with the bread of life and build the body of Christ through apostolic teaching, his strength of emphasis is the integrity, infallibility and finality of God’s word.

His ministry carries a particular brand and quality of apostolic authority, having mentored several younger ministers, including Apostle Femi Lazarus, who openly acknowledges Bishop Animashaun as his spiritual father. He is the Convener of the Bread of Life Convention (BLC) and the New Generation Ministers’ Conference (NGMC), and his teaching ministry with cutting-edge apostolic anointing has been with infallible proofs. He has been involved in the training and equipping of ministers for years, with emphasis on balance, excellence and thoroughness, while seasoned ministers have been raised under his apostolic oversight.

The young man who once sat in sociology seminars at OAU learning the theories and structures of human society, went out from Ile-Ife carrying something those seminars could not provide: a word from God, and a fire to deliver it. Great Ife gave him the analytical mind. The Holy Spirit gave him the message. You can read the full biography of Bishop Bimbo Animashaun here.

7. Pastor Funke Obadje

Not all the OAU alumni building God’s kingdom are men. And not all of them arrived at ministry by leaving their professional lives behind.

Pastor Funke Obadje is a passionate humanitarian and medical doctor by training from Obafemi Awolowo University. A doctor who also heals souls, she has over 8 years of working experience as a Medical Doctor with the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, LAUTECH Teaching Hospital Osogbo, and Osun State Health Board.

She is the wife and ministry partner of Apostle Segun Obadje — meaning that two OAU alumni are at the helm of God’s Love Tabernacle International Church. Both the Senior Pastor and the Vice President of SOTM are Great Ife graduates. The campus that produced them as professionals sent them into ministry together.

Pastor Funke Obadje is the Vice President of the Segun Obadje Teaching Ministry (SOTM). She has great passion for education and is an ardent lover of children. She founded Kharis Crest International School (K.C.I.S) because she was convinced that this is a task God would have her do, considering her passion for education.

She is also a prophetic voice in her own right — an author, the convener of All Ladies Word and Worship Conference (ALWWC), and a minister whose gifts include healing and evangelism. The medical training at OAU gave her an understanding of the human body, of what disease looks like, of what it costs to be sick. It also gave her a compassion that she now carries into every ministry setting - seeing the whole person, not just the spiritual symptom.

Two OAU doctors went out from Great Ife. One heals bodies. Both heal souls. You can read Pastor Funke Obadje’s full biography here.

8. Pastor Emmanuel Olanipekun — The Prophet Who Carried Both an MBA and a Mantle from Ile-Ife

(https://www.thenewman.org.ng/2022/04/biography-of-pastor-emmanuel-olanipekun.html)*

When God calls a man who holds both a BSc and an MBA from the same institution where he was formed spiritually, the resulting ministry tends to carry a distinctive quality — the combination of intellectual rigour and prophetic depth that produces a voice useful in the marketplace as much as in the sanctuary.

Born on December 26th, Pastor Emmanuel Olanipekun, popularly known as Poimen, is the Lead Pastor of the Torch Bearers Ministries with branches in Lagos and Ibadan. Hailing from Oyo, while growing up, Pastor Emmanuel attended the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo State, Nigeria. He thereafter proceeded to study at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Pastor Emmanuel holds a BSc and MBA degree from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. 

Two degrees from Great Ife, and the OAU chapter of his life did not merely give him academic credentials. It gave him a spiritual father. By understanding the need for covering and spiritual relevance, Pastor Emmanuel Olanipekun has always revered Pastor Segun Obadje as his spiritual father and mentor  - the same Apostle Segun Obadje who himself studied and lectured at OAU, appearing earlier in this list. Two generations of ministers, both shaped by the same campus, mentored by the same man. The spiritual lineage of OAU runs deep.

The Torch Bearers Ministries is a family commissioned to raise a people who are conscious of prophecy and their part in it.  Pastor Emmanuel is a prophet, a career coach, and a professional human resource personnel - a complete combination of the academic formation OAU gave him and the prophetic calling God planted in him there. His wife, Pastor Olateju Olanipekun, co-pastors with him and is the convener of the Above Rubies Conference and the Girl, The Lady, The Woman (TGTLTW) ministry.

9. Pastor Shola Okodugha - The Geophysics Graduate Who Found God in the Pit Theatre

Biography of Pastor Olushola Okodugha Bidemi](https://www.thenewman.org.ng/2022/04/biography-of-pastor-olushola-okodugha.html)*

The Pit Theatre at Obafemi Awolowo University is, architecturally, an open-air performance space on the campus grounds. But for Pastor Shola Okodugha, it became something else entirely: the location where his life’s assignment quietly began.

Pastor Olushola Okodugha is a graduate of Geophysics from Obafemi Awolowo University  — a discipline devoted to understanding the deep structures of the earth, its subsurface compositions, its hidden layers. There is a pleasant irony in the fact that a man trained to read what lies beneath the visible surface ended up in a ministry focused on spiritual depth and the things God hides for those willing to seek.

What makes his OAU story particularly compelling is how it begins. He initially served as an usher at Living Word Fellowship, Obafemi Awolowo University, held at the Pit Theatre on the OAU Ife campus.  He was not yet a preacher. He was not yet a pastor. He was a student in geophysics, serving quietly at the door of a fellowship meeting on his campus — and that faithful, unglamorous service was the beginning of everything that followed.

He started, he has said himself, without any aspiration to stand behind a pulpit. The call came to him, not the other way around. Today, Shola Okodugha is on a mission to raise a generation to become the best versions of themselves — particularly visible in his mentorship programme and various ministry expressions.  He is the Chief Executive Officer of Creations Republic, a leading marketing communications agency, and the founder of Knight Code, a coaching and mentoring organisation. He has combined pastoral ministry with professional excellence - exactly what OAU’s formation tends to produce. A man rooted in both worlds, serving effectively in both. You can read Pastor Shola Okodugha’s full biography here.

10. Pastor Tope Awofisayo - The Minister Whose Ministry Was Born in His First Year at OAU

Of all the OAU alumni in this list, Pastor Tope Awofisayo (Tope Godson) may have the most direct and deliberate OAU origin story — because his ministry did not just begin after OAU or during OAU; it was literally launched inside OAU, in his first year as a student.

Temitope Oluwaseyi Awofisayo, popularly known as Tope Awofisayo, is a dynamic minister of God. In 2003, he pioneered an outreach ministry initially known as Lifechannel Publication — now known as Lifechannel Ministries — as a first year student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.  Not as a graduating student with a degree in hand and a career to launch. As a first-year student. Barely arrived on campus, he was already distributing gospel newsletters and organising outreaches.

A graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University, Pastor Tope Godson holds a degree in Agricultural Engineering, complemented by a Master’s in Human Resources Management from the same institution.  Two degrees from OAU — but it was never the degrees that defined his time there. It was the ministry he was building simultaneously. Lifechannel Ministries grew on that campus, nurtured by the same Great Ife community that shaped his academic life.

Communion Christian Centre, the church arm of The Godsons Ministries, was officially inaugurated and consecrated on October 12th, 2012, as Pastor Tope Godson was ordained into pastoral ministry as the set man and founder of the church at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife.  The church was literally consecrated on the OAU campus. It began there. It was ordained there. OAU is not just where he studied — it is where the ministry itself was born, named, and commissioned.

Today, Communion Christian Centre has multiple branches including in Ikeja Lagos, Victoria Island, and maintains an active presence in Ile-Ife — permanently connected to the campus where its founder first began handing out gospel newsletters as a teenager in his first semester at Great Ife

What OAU Produces: A Reflection

Obafemi Awolowo University was built to produce lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists, and academics. And it has done that faithfully for over six decades. The university pioneered entrepreneurship education at the undergraduate level, houses the first iLab in Africa south of the Sahara, and has been at the cutting edge of Nigerian higher education since classes began in October 1962. 

But what this article demonstrates is that the same campus also produced something its founders may not have fully anticipated: a remarkable concentration of anointed gospel ministers, preachers, and apostles who have carried the Kingdom of God to every corner of Nigeria and beyond.

There is something spiritually significant about this. OAU has always been a campus with a vibrant Christian community — fellowships, campus ministries, prayer groups, and Christian Unions that have nurtured the faith of students even as they pursued their degrees. Many of the ministers featured in this article point to campus-based encounters, fellowship communities, and prayer meetings at OAU as critical moments in their spiritual formation.

God was building His church at Great Ife, one student at a time. Some of them went into courtrooms. Some went into hospitals. Some went into lecture halls. And some of them went into pulpits — and have never left.

The Citadel of Wisdom, as it is often called, sent out men and women who knew that the highest wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And Nigeria and the world is richer for it.

What is OAU known for spiritually

OAU has a longstanding tradition of vibrant campus Christian fellowships and ministry organisations that have shaped the faith of countless students. Several major Nigerian gospel ministers credit OAU’s campus Christian community — its fellowship meetings, prayer groups, and Christian Union activities — as foundational to their spiritual development and ministerial calling.

Conclusion: Great Ife’s Greatest Export

The University of Ife was founded with a vision to be a citadel of learning - a place where the intellectual future of Nigeria would be shaped. It has fulfilled that vision beyond what its founders imagined.

But what no convocation programme captures, and what no alumni directory tracks, is the Kingdom dimension of what God has been doing on that campus for over six decades. Men and women who walked those roads, sat in those lecture halls, and slept in those halls of residence went out carrying something that no degree could confer: an encounter with the Living God, a call to ministry, and a fire that has never gone out.

The lawyer became an apostle. The public health graduate became an evangelist. The building professor became a church planter. The sociologist became a bishop. The medical doctor became a prophetic minister. And the mathematics lecturer became the General Overseer of one of the largest evangelical denominations on earth. All roads from Great Ife apparently do not lead only to the courtroom, the hospital, or the corporate boardroom. Some of them lead to pulpits that shake the nations.

If you are a current OAU student reading this: the same God who met these men and women on your campus is still present on your campus today. The fellowships are still meeting. The prayer rooms are still open. And He is still calling.

Know another gospel minister who attended OAU that we haven’t mentioned? Drop their name in the comments - we’d love to feature them in an updated edition of this article.

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