by Seyi Lawal

Pastor Adeboye has donated N50 million to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.

The cheque was presented to the school’s vice chancellor, Professor Idowu Bamitale Omole at the fifth edition of the Redeem Christian Church of God’s Excel 2012 Conference. The donation is for an endowment of a professorial chair for mathematics and offers an extraordinary opportunity for benefactors to support research into the big questions of our time and beyond.

This is not the first time the minister has made a recognizable contribution to a government owned university. It can be recalled that he made similar donations to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the University of Ibadan and the University of Lagos, now Moshood Abiola University.

Adeboye is also expected to dedicate a Youth Academy sponsored by the Apapa Family of the RCCG in line with the church’s social corporate responsibility. To underscore the emphasis the church places on youths as change catalysts, it had perfected plans to establish Excel Academy—a mentoring and leadership training institution for youths.

Another pastor in the RCCG, Pastor Morgan said an investment on the nation’s youths would positively influence their thinking, their orientation and actions will change for the betterment of our country, “That is why we are focusing on the youths.”

Pastor Adeboye, 70, has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from University of Lagos, now Moshood Abiola University, where he also worked as a lecturer in mathematics, and later the University of Ilorin before he was elected to become the general overseer of RCCG in 1981 after the death of the founder the previous year.