Unlike their foreign colleagues, many Nigerian leading pastors are still missing out on the LinkedIn. Elsewhere, leading pastors have taken the platform as an essential part of their social media profiling.
But in Nigeria, it has yet to gain reasonable popularity among successful pastors.
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye; General Overseer of the Living Faith Church, Bishop David Oyedipo; President of the Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor William Kumuyi; Pastor Chris Okotie of the Household of God Church International Ministries and his counterpart at the Christ Embassy, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, are among leading clerics without functional LinkedIn profiles.
Also in their category are Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Latter Rain Assembly, Matthew Ashimolowo of the Kingsway International Christian Centre and Mike Okonkwo of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission.
Curiously, some of the clerics are already facing identity theft on the platform from which they have distanced themselves. With close to 10 accounts operated in his name, for instance, the founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, Pastor Temitope Joshua, seems to be the most imitated name on the platform.
However, the Senior Pastor of Daystar Christian Centre, Sam Adeyemi, has carved a niche for himself on LinkedIn. The motivational speaker and televangelist is probably the most active Nigerian religious leader on the platform.
Adeyemi’s top-selling skills on the career-blogging forum are management, leadership development, training, strategic planning, teaching, public speaking, project management, customer service and research.
Others are entrepreneurship, team building, fundraising, programme management, mentoring, social media, personal development and supervising.
He is also rated high in computing skills, such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Windows.
While businessmen talk about how they have built top-flying brands that are turning out huge profits, Adeyemi speaks about his church growth efforts. The cleric says he grew his Daystar’s Sunday service from 100 attendants to a 22,000-member congregation in a short period.
He also talks about his community projects, including “infrastructural development of Oregun High School”, which, he claimed, cost $150,000 (about N30m).
Adeyemi’s LinkedIn profile also claimed that he had taken up the rebuilding of five unnamed schools (that were destroyed by the bomb explosion that hit the Ikeja Army Cantonment) at the cost of $1.6m (about N320m).
He has expanded the traditional frontiers of LinkedIn to include testimonials. The section brings together different people who have one or two stories to tell about his personality and teaching.
The cleric toes the path of foreign pastors who have embraced the social networking channel to sell themselves and the religious organisations they represent.
LinkedIn is among the major social media platforms where you do not find many successful Nigerians. With his rising profile on the site, Adeyemi has, however, increased the examples of Dele Momodu, publisher of The Ovation and Tony Elumelu of Heirs Holdings, who are maintaining an inspiring presence on the Linkedln.
Momodu stands out among media entrepreneurs on LinkedIn.
The site lists journalism, publishing, editorial, newspaper, media relations, corporate communications, new media, public relations and magazine as top skills Momodu is known for.
Elumelu is tipped for skills, such as investment, private equity banking, emerging market, mergers and acquisitions, leadership and corporate finance.
These are followed by business strategy, leadership start-ups, risk management, management consulting, business planning and valuation.
Elumelu’s page, unlike many others, is uniquely branded and it carries the full career profile and curricula vitae of the former banker.
In fact, there is no piece of information about Elumelu’s experiences and honours that is not published on his LinkedIn page.
by manufacturing high-nutrient low-cost powders; provided jobs for the physically challenged who supply labour needed for their businesses.”
