The Prof. Olukoya Ogen Story: Climbing the Ladder, Building*More Rungs
By Paul Adeagbo
Okitipupa, Ondo State
14 June, 2026
When Olukoya Ogen became a Professor in 2012, few could have predicted that the then young scholar from Okitipupa would one day return to transform in dramatic ways the very institutions that shaped and moulded him. Fourteen years later, his story reads less like a curriculum vitae and more like a blueprint for an impactful career and giving back.
The award-winning international historian has quietly become one of the most consistent education philanthropists of our time, with donations cutting across primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions since 2017.
*“I Started Where I Was Taught”*
The journey began in 1999 as a PhD student at the Department of History and Strategic Studies, University of Lagos. The seats at the History Seminar Room were too old badly damaged. Prof. Ogen mobilised his fellow PhD student, the late Dr. Paul Osifodunrin and the duo succeeded in donating 15 modern office chairs to their department. It was an unprecedented gesture in the history of that Department. It confirmed Ogen’s belief that one does not need to be rich to positively impact on his or her immediate environment. Thus began the philanthropic journey of this globally renowned historian. In 2017, under the auspices of the Olukoya Ogen Foundation, Prof. Ogen in conjunction with his childhood friend, Hon. Justice Ademola Enikuomehin, JCA, built a solar powered, fully equipped digital resource centre named after Prof. Ogen’s late father and donated it to Idepe High School, Okitipupa, his Alma mater. For many teachers and parents in Idepe, it was the first signal that their old boys have not forgotten their roots.
Five years later in 2022, he returned alongside Justice Ademola Enikuomehin and Pastor Jerry Akinsele, two members of the Board of Trustees of the Olukoya Ogen Foundation. Together, they donated a modern Student Relaxation Centre to Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology (OAUSTECH), Okitipupa, where Prof. Ogen serves as a member of the University Advancement Board. The facility now doubles as a hub for student mentoring, counseling, and peer learning on campus.
“Prof. Ogen understands that students need space to breathe and think,” an OAUSTECH student leader said during the commissioning by the former Governor Rotimi Akeredolu. “That centre changed campus life for us.”
*Honouring a Mother, Building a Future*
In 2026, Prof. Ogen took his philanthropy even further back— to his primary school at Ilutitun in Okitipupa Local Government Area of Ondo State. He donated a state-of-the-art administrative building and named it after his late mother. The gesture, locals say, was deeply personal: a son repaying the woman who first taught him the value of education under zinc roofs and kerosene lamps.
“Education begins at the foundation,” Prof. Ogen noted during the commissioning. “If our primary schools crumble, the whole system suffers.”
*Returning to Adeyemi*
His generosity did not stop at home. At Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo — now Adeyemi Federal University of Education — where he studied and later served as Provost from 2014 to 2018, Prof. Ogen single-handedly renovated one of the two classrooms where he was taught. He also mobilised and joined his mates in the renovation of the second classroom. The same lecture halls where he was taught between 1986 and 1990 now bear his touch as a benefactor.
While at Adeyemi, he went beyond bricks and mortar. He introduced a Teaching Scholar Fellowship scheme for Best Graduating Students across all departments — a programme designed to retain top talents and give them immediate opportunities to serve as graduate assistants. Many beneficiaries of that fellowship are today lecturers and researchers across Nigeria.
*A Scholar Without Borders*
Prof. Ogen’s impact extends far beyond infrastructure. He has taught at some of Nigeria’s leading universities: University of Lagos, Akoka; Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; and Osun State University, Osogbo. He has enjoyed postdoctoral research stints at the University of London, the University of Birmingham where he has been a Visiting Senior Research Fellow since 2012, the University of Leeds, Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he served as Visiting Full Research Professor and ICT University, Yaoundé where he is currently serving as an Endowed Visiting Professor.
His robust scholarship has earned him international acclaim. He is a serial foreign grants’ winner and most of his grants are the most prestigious in his field. He is the second Nigerian historian to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of the UK. He is also a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and the Historical Society of Nigeria. More than titles, he has used his academic networks and research grants to fund postgraduate training, conferences, and human capacity development for his numerous mentees.
For students who passed through his tutelage in Lagos, Akungba, Ile-Ife, or Osogbo, Prof. Ogen was the lecturer who impacted lives and provided unique opportunities for his colleagues, students and mentees.
*“Education is the Debt I Owe”*
What ties all the projects together is Prof. Ogen’s philosophy: education is a debt every beneficiary owes to the next generation.
From ICT labs in secondary schools, to relaxation centres for student wellbeing at OAUSTECH, to modern administrative building in primary and tertiary institutions, and fellowships to keep the best brains in the system — his interventions cover every tier of learning. As a teacher, professor, provost, researcher, and now philanthropist, he has lived the complete cycle of academic service.
For communities in Okitipupa, Ondo, Osun, and beyond, Prof. Olukoya Ogen has become more than a scholar. He is proof that success means nothing if the ladder you climbed is pulled up behind you.
As Idepe High School students enjoy the solar powered digital resource centre that he donated; as OAUSTECH students relax and strategize in the centre he built; as LA Primary School teachers and pupils enjoy the comfort of the conducive offices provided by him; and as Adeyemi students and graduates continue to benefit from the fellowships he initiated and the classrooms he renovated, one message is clear: history remembers those who build and make history, not just those who write about it.
Paul Adeagbo, a communication specialist, has been following Prof. Ogen’s giant strides since 2014.
