Pastor Dotun Ojelabi
The Man
A petroleum engineer who answered a higher call — and never lost the discipline of the first profession while building the second.
Pastor Dotun Ojelabi is the Founder and General Overseer of Covenant Harvest Christian International Ministry (CHCIM), The Manor, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos — a church founded in 2010 with a mandate to raise influential leaders and serve the spiritual needs of young people. Before CHCIM, he pioneered and pastored the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Power Link Chapel, Lekki Peninsula, for eight years, and has planted more than ten churches.
His ministry has carried him across Spain, Ghana, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States — preaching, as he puts it, the undiluted word of God with notable miracles and testimonies of salvation. Journalists describe him as "ever bubbling, cheerful and always full of energy" — a man who lives to engage young people, empower them and nurture them into leaders.
The Journey
The Heritage
Pastor Ojelabi is the first son of the late Adekunle Ojelabi, the celebrated Ibadan historian and politician whose "A Textbook of West African History" (1970) — spanning the region's history from 1000 AD to 1980 — was the official WAEC-approved history textbook for a generation of West African students. Growing up, the family visited his father's office at the Educational Research Institute and Valuta Publishers, Oke-Ado, Ibadan. In his later years, Adekunle Ojelabi became born again, joined the RCCG and trained as a Sunday school teacher — a season of deep bonding between father and son.
His father's reputation endures: when Pastor Ojelabi met Pastor Tunde Bakare in London, Bakare quoted an entire paragraph of the 1970 textbook back to him from memory. The James Adekunle Ojelabi Foundation — established April 2019 at his father's post-humous 80th birthday lecture — continues the family's tradition of educational scholarships, mirroring the generosity for which his father was known every Saturday to visitors in Ibadan.
A Circle of Honour
At his 50th birthday celebration in August 2019 — a two-day event at Oriental Hotel and Covenant Harvest, Lekki — Former President Olusegun Obasanjo served as Father of the Day, personally stepping in to speak for over 40 minutes when the scheduled guest speaker could not attend. Her Excellency Bamidele Abiodun, First Lady of Ogun State, honoured the celebration in person.
Among those who came to honour him:
The Mother
In 2001, while cross-posted to Houston, Texas and pastoring the young RCCG parish on Victoria Island, the church could not pay its rent. His assistant pastors went to Ibadan — and Mama Dotun, his mother, handed them the rent in cash. It was money he had been sending her over the years, quietly saved. "Where did you get this money — aren't you a pensioner?" he asked. Her answer: the money was his, held for a day like that.
The Family
He is married to Adetutu (Tutu) Ojelabi — the two met at a Texaco guest-house party and have built their marriage on what he calls the five love languages she taught him. Together they were honoured at the City People Award for Excellence for their contributions to nation-building through ministry.
- The smile: friends and journalists alike describe his constant smile as the signature of a genuine heart — a trait he shares with his late father.
- The discipline: he does not keep African time — punctuality, he says, is the first law of integrity.
- The calling: he walked away from a flourishing oil career — top of class, courted by ExxonMobil's executive vice chairman — because the call of God was louder.