Omoyele Sowore, founder of Sahara Reporters and leader of the African Action Congress, has reignited debate over the affordability of church-owned universities in Nigeria. Speaking on the Honest Bunch podcast, Sowore criticized institutions like Covenant University, Babcock University, Redeemers University, and Bowen University for charging tuition fees ranging from hundreds of thousands to over one million naira per session. These universities are operated by religious bodies including the Living Faith Church, Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Redeemed Christian Church of God, and Nigerian Baptist Convention. Sowore highlighted that while these churches draw large congregations from low-income communities such as Ajegunle and Bariga, their high tuition fees make higher education inaccessible to most members. He pointed out that ordinary worshippers contribute tithes and offerings that help fund these institutions, yet rarely benefit from them. Sowore did not oppose church-run universities but questioned the inequity in access, arguing that scholarships should be more than promotional tools. His critique centers on the contradiction between religious outreach and the exclusionary cost of education these churches provide.
Omoyele Sowore's focus on church-owned universities exposes a quiet inequity: millions in tithes flow from poor congregants into institutions that priced them out from the start. If Covenant University and others are built with money from Ajegunle, they should not function as elite enclaves accessible only to the wealthy. This isn't about rejecting faith-based education—it's about accountability in how religious institutions deploy resources drawn from the very people they claim to uplift. For most Nigerian churchgoers, the dream of quality education remains out of reach, no matter how faithfully they give.
