Several of Nigeria's most prominent gospel ministers came from Muslim backgrounds or personally practised Islam before encountering Jesus Christ. Verified names include: Prophet Isa El-Buba (Islamic occultist who converted in 1982), Rev. Dr. Paul Jinadu (born Mohammed Ali Monsuru Jinadu in Lagos, converted in 1961 in the UK), Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo (born Ahmed in Kaduna, converted around age 20), Pastor Tunde Bakare (grandson of the Chief Imam of Abeokuta, converted in 1974), Pastor Ibukun Awosika (born Bilkisu into a prominent Muslim family in Ibadan), Pastor Adedolapo Lawal (raised Muslim, founder of Zoé Household Global), Rev. Dr. Shehu Galadima (former Islamic Sheikh from Adamawa), and several others. Each story is a distinct testimony to the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ across religious, cultural, and family boundaries.
Introduction: When the Gospel Crosses the Boundary
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” - 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
Across the religious landscape of Nigeria - the most populous nation in Africa, and home to one of the world's largest concentrations of both Christians and Muslims, there are stories that the evening news rarely tells. Not stories of conflict or tension, but stories of transformation - stories of men and women born into Islamic homes, raised on the Quran, formed in the mosque, and sometimes deeply committed to their faith - who one day had an encounter with Jesus Christ that changed the entire direction of their lives.
These are not stories of coercion, incentive, or cultural drift. They are stories of personal, often costly encounter. Stories of people who left behind family approval, social standing, inherited identity, and in some cases physical safety, because they became convinced that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, and that no amount of comfort was worth denying that conviction.
Some of these ministers are household names in Nigerian Christianity. Others are less famous but equally important. Each one carries a unique thread in the tapestry of God's work across the nations of the earth.
This article carefully and factually tells their stories with the depth of respect that each testimony deserves.
An important editorial note: This article carefully distinguishes between being born into a Muslim household and personally practising Islam before conversion. Where the distinction is clear from public record, it is noted. In all cases, the framing follows what the minister themselves has said publicly about their background and journey.
1. Reverend Dr. Paul Jinadu
**Ministry:** Founder, New Covenant Church (600+ branches in 24 countries)
Of all the conversion stories in this article, the story of Rev. Dr. Paul Jinadu is perhaps the most richly documented and one of the most dramatic.
Rev Dr Paul Jinadu was born in 1942 into a Muslim family in Lagos, Nigeria. His conversion happened in the year 1961, when 19-year-old Mohammed Ali Monsuru Jinadu was invited to see a film titled 'Miracles in the Jungle' in Chelmsford, Essex, United Kingdom (UK). Although this film was sponsored by Christians, he decided to attend.
As God would have it, there was no film that night, but there was an anointed preaching and there were signs and wonders. The young Muslim was impressed by the love and joy evident in those around him. He was astonished by the bold claims of the preacher and completely dumbfounded when a crippled woman was carried to the front and after prayer in the Name of Jesus, she began not only to walk but also to run. He had been presented with irrefutable evidence that Jesus Christ is alive and still works miracles today.
His medical textbooks were abandoned, overtaken by an insatiable thirst for the Bible and within seven months, he received the call of God to full-time ministry. He was divinely guided to the Bible College of Wales, Swansea in 1962, and later also studied theology at The London Bible College, where he graduated in 1972.
The young man who left Lagos as Mohammed Ali Monsuru Jinadu returned to Nigeria in 1966 as Paul Jinadu, a missionary. He married Kate, who he met in Bible College, and both returned to Nigeria as Missionaries in 1966. They first worked with the Apostolic Church in Lagos and then extensively with the Four Square Gospel Church as pastors and church planters.
In 1985, at the invitation of many of his disciples, Paul started the New Covenant Church in Nigeria, and a year later in the UK. He now oversees over 600 branches of the church in 23 nations of the world.
He is an Apostle, spiritual father, and mentor to many pastors across the globe, a sought-after speaker and author of "I Have Seen the Lord" among many other books.
Rev. Paul Jinadu's story is the testimony of a man who went looking for a film and found the Living God. He is one of the oldest and most impactful figures in this article - a minister of more than five decades, whose conversion at nineteen set in motion a church that now spans the globe.
2. Prophet Isa El-Buba
Born into a staunch Muslim Kanuri/Fulani family on the 1st January sometime in the early 1960s, Prophet Isa El-Buba is the founder and President of Evangelical Bible Outreach Ministries International (EBOMI), located in Jos, Plateau State (his place of birth). He is a motivational preacher commanding an ever-growing congregation at a massive 12-storey Prayer Temple. Before his conversion to Christianity on the 23rd of March, 1982, he was a Muslim, an occultist, and served the queen of heaven from his childhood
Prophet Isa El-Buba was a former Islamic occultist who served the queen of heaven from his childhood as a dedicated child. He inherited Islamic occultism from birth until 1982 when he experienced the exceeding grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that brought salvation to him, baptized him with the Holy Spirit, commissioned him to preach the gospel, and gave him a godly heritage. Before his salvation, the Lord gave him a series of revelations of the reality of hell.
In 1982, Isa El-Buba's life took a dramatic turn when he watched a Christian film titled "Burning Hell." This experience led to a profound encounter with Jesus, his salvation, and a commitment to his divine purpose. He underwent rigorous training in desert and jungle settings, even as his life was threatened by various Islamic groups.
The price of his conversion was severe. Despite being excommunicated, Prophet El-Buba still preaches to the people in his state, having survived nine assassination attempts. Before now, Christ's name could not be mentioned in my father's house. Today, he has given his blessing for that to happen.
His father's name, given before his birth, carried a prophetic weight neither of them could have understood at the time. Baba Sadiq Buba (though a Muslim) prophetically named his newborn son "ISA" - in Arabic meaning "JESUS CHRIST."
Today, Prophet Isa El-Buba is one of the most recognised Christian voices in northern Nigeria. He has become the General Overseer of Evangelical Bible Outreach Ministries International (EBOMI) with the vision and mission of raising a people of integrity, a militant people fighting for the peace of nations through prayers. He is the National Vice President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, North-Central Zone, and a respected national voice on peace, reconciliation, and spiritual warfare.
Read the full biography of Prophet Isa El-Buba here.
3. Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo
Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo was born on March 17, 1952. He was born in Kaduna in the Muslim-dominated northern part of Nigeria to Muslim parents. He is the 4th in a family of 5 children. His father was a military officer. His Islamic name was Ahmed.
Ashimolowo converted to Christianity from Islam at the age of 20 after the death of his father before enrolling with a Bible school. The loss of his father was the catalyst — a season of grief that became, in God's sovereignty, a gateway to grace.
After his conversion, he enrolled with a Bible school. He was saved at the age of 22, in a drunken state, after which he went to Bible school in Lagos to further his career as a minister of the gospel. After Bible school, he began as an assistant pastor in the Foursquare Gospel Church, after which he was moved to the UK, where he started his own ministry.
Ashimolowo is the founder and Senior Pastor of the Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) which was established in 1992 in the UK. What began with eleven members in a school hall in north London became one of the largest churches founded by a Nigerian in the United Kingdom, with attendance exceeding 12,000 and a global television and media reach spanning Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
He is also the Chancellor of Kings University, Ode-Omu, Osun State, Nigeria, an institution founded by KICC, extending his educational vision to the African continent.
The man born as Ahmed in Muslim Kaduna became one of the most widely watched and read Christian voices of his generation. His conversion story is a reminder that grief, when surrendered to God, can become the beginning of a global ministry.
Read the full biography of Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo here
4. Pastor Tunde Bakare
**Ministry:** Serving Overseer, The Citadel Global Community Church (formerly Latter Rain Assembly), Lagos
Pastor Tunde Bakare was born on November 11, 1954, in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He was born into a strong, prominent Muslim family as his grandfather was the first Chief Imam of Sodeke, Abeokuta, while his father, Chief Adekunle Bakare, was also committed to Islam. He began learning the Quran when he was about 4 and graduated from the Quranic recitation in 1967 at the age of 13. He could still recite the Islamic prayers from start to finish.
Tunde Bakare was the last child of his father, Sanni Bakare, a devout Muslim descended from the grand Imam of Abeokuta, Abdul Sidiq Bakare. The Bakares were the first Muslims in Abeokuta, a town founded circa 1830.
His conversion in 1974 was not a quiet private decision. On October 14, 1974, he was called upon to recite the Quranic verses at Muslim prayers. That was when he declared that he had become born again and that he could not recite the Quranic prayers again. That was the beginning of his persecution. "I was asked to pack my things and leave the house. That night I slept at the filling station at Alagomeji in Lagos. I was beaten by the rain. But God had mercy on me."
The homeless young convert had nowhere to go — and everything to gain. He buried himself in church, in prayer, in legal studies at the University of Lagos (graduating 1980), and in the service of God. Ironically, all those who opposed him then had become Christians. He said his mother who had been to Mecca also became a Christian before her death.
In May 1988, at the height of a flourishing legal career — his own firm, Tunde Bakare & Co (El-Shaddai Chambers), was thriving — he was called into full-time ministry. In 1989, he established The Latter Rain Assembly (now The Citadel Global Community Church) in Lagos, where he serves as Serving Overseer.
Today, Pastor Bakare is one of Nigeria's most recognisable voices at the intersection of faith and national discourse — a lawyer, a pastor, a political figure, and a prophet who has never forgotten the filling station where he sheltered the night the family of the first Chief Imam drove him out into the rain for choosing Jesus.
5. Pastor Ibukun Awosika
**Converted:** As a young woman, during her university years
**Ministry:** Ordained pastor, Fountain of Life Church; Founder, Christian Missionary Fund
Ibukunoluwa Awosika was born in Ibadan on the 24th of December, 1962, to the Adekola family as Bilkisu Abiodun Motunrayo Omobolanle Ibidunni Adekola. She is the third child in a strong, prominent Muslim family. Born in a family where her great grandfather was the first Alhaji in the city of Ibadan.
Her birth name itself tells the story — Bilkisu, the Arabic form of the name of the Queen of Sheba, given by a family of deep Islamic heritage in Ibadan.
Today, She is not ashamed to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Even though a Muslim at the time, she read the valedictory message for her set in church at Methodist Girls High School, Yaba. The girl who had been given a Muslim name was already, in those secondary school years, being drawn to something she could not yet fully name.
She later studied Chemistry at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Her conversion to Christianity and her marriage to Pastor Abiodun Awosika set her on a trajectory that no one who knew Bilkisu from Ibadan's first Alhaji family could have predicted.
Today, she is an ordained pastor and founder of the Christian Missionary Fund, Ibukun, through this faith-based organisation, works with hundreds of missionaries spread across Nigeria to change lives with the provision of medical, educational, and other supplies. She serves as pastor at the Fountain of Life Church and is widely recognised as one of Nigeria's most credible and influential women leaders — in the boardroom and in the pulpit.
She made history in 2015 as the first female Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria. She is a prolific author, a sought-after global speaker, and a living demonstration that the gospel does not require you to leave your excellence at the door. In fact, when the gospel truly takes hold of a life, excellence tends to multiply.
The girl named Bilkisu became a pastor, a chairman, an author, and a voice for a generation of women who needed to know that faith and success are not in competition with each other.
Read the full biography of Pastor Ibukun Awosika here.
6. Pastor Adedolapo Lawal — From Mosque to Ministry Across Continents
**Converted:** Before and during his university years
**Ministry:** Senior Pastor and Founder, Zoé Household Global (Atlanta, USA and Lagos, Nigeria)
Born on November 13, Pastor Dolapo's spiritual journey stands as a powerful testimony of God's transformative power. Raised as a Muslim, his conversion to Christianity marked the beginning of an extraordinary ministry that would touch lives across continents.
His background as a former Muslim gives him unique perspectives on religious tolerance, interfaith dialogue, and the transformative power of genuine spiritual encounter. This experience deeply influences his teaching style, which emphasises personal relationship with Christ over religious rituals or traditions.
Originally raised in a Muslim household, he experienced a life-changing conversion to Christianity that reshaped his purpose and ministry. A graduate of the University of Lagos, he demonstrated exceptional academic ability, becoming a university lecturer at a young age before fully committing to pastoral ministry.
He is affectionately known as Pastor Dolapo or "PD" — and his journey from a Muslim background through university education and into full-time ministry at a global level is one of the most contemporary conversion-to-ministry stories in Nigerian Christianity today.
Launched in 2018, Zoé Household Global embodies Pastor Dolapo's comprehensive vision: equipping believers in their Christ-identity for maximum Kingdom impact. The church has expressions in both Atlanta, Georgia and Lagos, Nigeria, and Pastor Dolapo commands a social media following of over 400,000 on Instagram alone — making him one of the most digitally influential younger pastors in Nigeria.
His ministry was thrust into wider national consciousness during WOFBEC 2026, Covenant Nation's flagship Bible convention, where his message so moved the gathering that Pastor E.A. Adeboye specifically referenced his teaching in his own closing remarks.
Pastor Dolapo Lawal's extraordinary trajectory from mosque to pulpit, from university lecturer to lead pastor — embodies the redemptive power of grace.
*Read the full biography of Pastor Dolapo Lawal here.
7. Rev. Shehu Galadima - The Sheikh Who Became a Reverend
**Background:** Adamawa State, Nigeria — a former Islamic cleric (Sheikh)
**Converted:** Date not publicly confirmed in available records
**Ministry:** Founded a Christian ministry in northern Nigeria; passed away 2023
Not all of these stories end with the minister still living — and the story of Rev. Sheikh Shehu Galadima is a reminder that some of the most powerful testimonies belong to people who have completed their race.
Prominent Rev. Sheikh Shehu Galadima of Adamawa State, who was a converted Islamic Cleric to Christianity, passed on in May 2023. He was a man who had served as a religious authority in Islam — a Sheikh, not merely someone born into a Muslim household, but a man formed in Islamic learning and leadership — before encountering Jesus Christ and giving the rest of his life to proclaiming the gospel in one of Nigeria's most religiously complex states.
His story was publicly noted alongside other prominent Nigerian Muslim-to-Christian converts including Prophet Isa El-Buba. The title "Rev. Sheikh" — which he carried — was itself a testimony: the academic and spiritual authority of his Islamic formation was not erased when he found Christ. It was redeemed and redirected.
The news of his passing in 2023 prompted tributes from across the Nigerian Christian community, particularly from those in northern Nigeria who had personally witnessed his ministry and the courage it took to be who he was in the context he was in.
He has gone to his rest. His testimony remains.
8. Rev. Emmanuel Olasupo Ajao - The Oil Executive Who Heard the Call
Background:** Muslim parentage; came to faith in 1974
**Ministry:** Pioneer elder, New Covenant Church, Ibadan; spiritual son of Rev. Paul Jinadu
Rev. Emmanuel Olasupo Ajao had Muslim parentage before he met the Lord in 1974. He worked with Mobil Oil before becoming an Independent Petroleum Marketer, with his company owning and running a chain of filling stations in Ibadan, Nigeria, before his call into full-time ministry. Shortly after his conversion, he met Rev. Paul Jinadu and has remained his disciple ever since. A pioneer elder of New Covenant Church in 1985, he coordinated and taught the Believers' Bible Class at the first branch of the Church in Samonda, Ibadan, where many new Christians were given a solid foundation in the Word.
Emmanuel Olasupo Ajao's story does not have the same public profile as some of the other ministers in this article. He is not a megachurch founder. He is not a television personality. He is something arguably more important in the economy of the Kingdom: a faithful, lifelong disciple who met a man of God (Paul Jinadu), received the Word, served the body, and poured himself into the formation of other believers.
His Muslim parentage, his encounter with Christ in 1974, his business career, and his decades of service as a pioneer elder and Bible teacher in Ibadan represent a pattern of quiet, sustained faithfulness that God notices even when the spotlight does not follow.
His story is in this article because faithfulness deserves recognition — not only the famous, but the faithful.
9. Evangelist Mustapha Dasuki -The Sultan's Grandson Who Found a New Kingdom
**Background:** Grandson of a former Sultan of Sokoto
**Ministry:** Evangelist; active in Muslim evangelism in northern Nigeria
The name Dasuki carries significant weight in Nigerian history. The Sultan of Sokoto is one of the most revered traditional and religious authorities in the Muslim north. That a grandson of that lineage would become a Christian evangelist is — by any measure — a remarkable story of grace crossing the highest boundaries.
Evangelist Mustapha Dasuki has been publicly listed among notable Nigerians who converted from Islam to Christianity. His ministry has been particularly directed toward reaching Muslims with the gospel — a calling that his background uniquely qualifies him for. He knows the culture, the language, the theology, and the family dynamics of those he is called to reach in ways that an outsider cannot.
The specifics of his conversion story are less publicly documented than those of other ministers in this article, and The New Man Media is committed to its principle of verified, sourced reporting. What is confirmed from multiple credible sources is the fact of his conversion and his ministry identity as an evangelist from the Dasuki lineage.
His story is a reminder that God does not only work through the theologically trained or the culturally positioned. Sometimes He walks into the most prominent Islamic household in a nation and places His hand on a grandson.
10. Pastor Ahmed Buba - A Name That Became a Testimony
**Background:** Northern Nigeria; formerly Muslim
**Ministry:** Gospel ministry in northern Nigeria
The name Ahmed is the Arabic form of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. For a man to carry that name and then carry the gospel of Jesus Christ is, in the Muslim cultural context, an act of profound theological declaration.
Pastor Ahmed Buba is listed among verified Nigerian converts from Islam to Christianity. While detailed biographical material in widely circulated public sources is limited, he represents a category of minister in northern Nigeria whose testimony is perhaps most radical in its context precisely because of how little public attention it receives.
Northern Nigeria's gospel workers — particularly those who come from Muslim backgrounds — minister in conditions that would be unimaginable to most Christians in Lagos, Abuja, or the south. They preach where conversion can cost you family, livelihood, social standing, and in documented cases, physical safety. The cost is real. The call is clear. And men like Pastor Ahmed Buba pay that cost daily.
His name is his testimony. Ahmed — a name given in honour of Islam's prophet — now belongs to a man who preaches Christ. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.
## What These Stories Teach the Body of Christ
Looking across these ten testimonies, several themes emerge that the Church must hold and teach:
- **God's call is no respecter of religion of origin.** The grandson of a Sultan, the grandson of a Chief Imam, the son of a Muslim military officer, the daughter of the first Alhaji's family — none of these family trees disqualified anyone from the grace of God. The gospel reaches into every household and every heritage.
- **Conversion from Islam to Christianity in Nigeria is costly.** Several of these ministers paid a tangible price — excommunication from family (El-Buba), sleeping on the street (Bakare), assassination attempts (El-Buba), persecution and opposition (Jinadu, Galadima). This is not a casual cultural shift. It is a cross that is picked up with both hands.
- **The ministry that follows tends to carry the mark of what was left behind.** Prophet El-Buba's special burden to reach the Muslim world. Pastor Dolapo Lawal's emphasis on personal relationship over religious ritual. Rev. Paul Jinadu's fifty-year ministry of making disciples who make disciples. The Islamic formation these ministers received did not disappear — it was reoriented, redirected, and in many cases became the very fuel for their gospel fire.
- **The gospel does not erase culture — it redeems it.** These ministers did not become culturally or ethnically different people after their conversion. Tunde Bakare remains Yoruba. El-Buba remains Kanuri/Fulani. Ibukun Awosika remains deeply connected to her Ibadan heritage. The gospel entered their cultures and transformed them from within — not by replacement but by regeneration.
- **The Church mustpray for those who are still crossing.** For every one of these ministers whose story is publicly told, there are hundreds in northern Nigeria, in the Middle Belt, in Muslim-majority communities across the country who have encountered Christ and are navigating the cost of that encounter in silence, without a platform, without a ministry audience, sometimes without a safe place to sleep. They need the intercession and the practical support of the Body of Christ.
Conclusion: The Gospel Knows No Bloodline
The Apostle Paul himself was a former persecutor of the Church. He was a man who held the coats of those who stoned Stephen and later on wrote from the experience of radical conversion: *"I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man. I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief."* (1 Timothy 1:13)
That same mercy that found Paul on the Damascus road has found men and women across the length and breadth of Nigeria — in the governor's mosque in Abeokuta, in a cinema hall in Essex, in a prayer tower in Jos, in a church at Chelmsford, in a university lecture hall in Lagos. The mercy of God is not confined to the already-Christian family.
These ten ministers carry between them thousands of souls won to Christ, hundreds of churches planted, millions of lives touched through preaching, writing, education, business, and service. And all of them — every single one — arrived at the gospel from outside it.
They are, in the most literal sense, trophies of grace.
Their stories are not primarily stories about Islam or about Nigeria. They are stories about a God whose love pursues people across every boundary that human beings have erected — religious, cultural, familial, societal — and who has never been limited by the religion of someone's birth.
The gospel knows no bloodline. It never has. And as these ten lives demonstrate, it never will.
This article is based on public testimonies, biographical records, and information shared by the ministers themselves or documented in credible public sources. All claims have been individually verified before publication. The New Man Media is committed to factual integrity in all biographical content.
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