Biography of veteran gospel actor, Wole Olaleye

Evangelist Wole Olaleye is no doubt a veteran film maker. His face has defined many gospel films in this country. There is no how anyone will talk about gospel films in Nigeria without mentioning the name, Wole Olaleye.

He is known for his deep yoruba accent in movies. In a recent exclusive interview with Gospel Film News publisher, Oluwafemi Dosu at Ile-Ife, Osun state, Wole Olaleye revealed his real biography.

Wole Olaleye was born in the very early 60s, started his education career from United Methodist School, Iloko. He is a native of Iloko-Ijesa in Oriade Local Government Area of Osun State. His father was a teacher, a head master.

Wole finished his primary school and gained admission into Ilesa Grammar School, he was in a boarding house until he finished. While waiting for his result to come that year, there was a crash programme that Bola Ige introduced in 1979 for teachers college and Wole took advantage of the programme at Teachers Training College as the programme was to last for six months. He graduated in 1980.

He later gained admission into the then Oyo State College of Education in Ilesa where he spent about 2 months before crossing to The Polytechnic, Ibadan where he graduated in 1985. He had his 1 year service (NYSC) in Ondo State and came back to teach Comprehensive High School, Ayetoro in Ogun State before leaving the teaching service in 1990.

After that he went to do some courses again and he attended the Mount Zion Institute of Christian Drama, that was in 1992. In 1997 he did a special course in Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife in Food and Science Technology then after that he came into full time drama ministry. Along the line he went back to school but this time on a bible based scholarship and he had to go through all the teachings until he had his Phd. in church growth and administration last year (2017). He did his graduation in October.

Talking about his professional background, Wole doesn’t believe he has a profession, he believes he has a ministry because all his profession are subjected to his ministry but talking about the real professional background, Wole was trained while he was in the polytechnic as a Secretariat Administrator and that was what led to his working with Academic Press, Ilupeju in Lagos for about 4 years.

While Wole was in Ilupeju he was doing some training at the National Theatre under the tutulage of Antar Laniyan and later at Ososa with Baba Ogunde (Hubert Ogunde, the doyen of theater in Nigeria). So he admitted that that was where his teeth was cut for drama but that was a secular drama and it was the trait of the secular drama he brought into the Christian drama in 1992 when the Lord called him into ministry and he has remained in Christian drama since then till now.

Wole Olaleye has starred many Christian movies in Nigeria, featured in many and directed some. He is also a broadcast presenter.

He is happily married with children who are also married.