Pastor Taiwo Odukoya; Founder of Fountain of Life Church

Taiwo Odukoya was a preacher in Nigeria. He was born on June 15, 1956, and died on August 7, 2023. He was the head leader of The Fountain of Life Church in Ilupeju, Lagos, which had more than 8,000 people as members.

Early years

Taiwo Odukoya was born on June 15, 1956, in the city of Kaduna in what was then Colonial Nigeria. He grew up there as well. He went to Baptist Primary School, Kigo Road, Kaduna, for elementary school and St. Paul’s College (now called Kufena College, Wusasa), Zaria, for secondary school. In 1976, he went to the University of Ibadan and got a degree in petroleum engineering in 1981.

As a petroleum engineer, he started working at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in April 1982, after completing the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) program. He stayed there until January 1994, when he was called to the ministry and decided to leave on his own.

The Fountain of Life Church

Taiwo and Bimbo Odukoya (1960–2005) started The Fountain of Life Church in 1992. Their goal was to teach men and women how to have good relationships and how to be good leaders so that they could be who they were made to be.

Reaching out

Odukoya said that he has a strong belief in the role of the church in the community. He shows this through several outreach projects, such as a hospital, an orphanage, a school for poor children, a farm, a water project that puts boreholes in strategic places for people who don’t have access to clean and portable water, and a skill acquisition and entrepreneurial institute for the less fortunate.

Taiwo Odukoya started Discovery for Men and Discovery for Women on April 19, 1997. These are non-religious programs for men and women that are meant to help them reach their full potential. Through quarterly rallies, mentorship programs, and a vocational center, these programs reach out to hundreds of thousands of men and women every year to teach them technical and real life skills.

Controversy

Odukoya talked about the plane crash that killed his first wife again in 2014. This was nine years after she had died. He said that pastors would be smart to use private jets because they help pastors do their jobs better and are safer than commercial trips.

Personal Life and Death

Odukoya met Bimbo Williams in 1980 at the University of Ibadan. They started dating, and in 1984 they got married. Three children came from the marriage. Bimbo Odukoya and 102 other people died when Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 crashed on December 10, 2005. Many people had heard and liked what Bimbo Odukoya had to say. On January 5, 2010, five years after their first marriage, Taiwo Odukoya married Rosemary Simangele Zulu from South Africa for the second time. Two boys came from the marriage.

Odukoya’s second wife died of cancer in November 2021. On November 9, the preacher told people that his South African wife had died. He said that she had “battled cancer for the better part of two years.”

Taiwo Odukoya died in the U.S. on August 7, 2023. He was 67 years old. May his soul rest in peace.