MEET SYDNEY ELTON, THE WHITE MAN WHO MENTORED ALMOST ALL THE PROMINENT PASTORS IN NIGERIA

 Sydney Granvile Elton was a white missionary who mentored several notable men of God in Nigeria. He was sent as a missionary to Nigeria by the Apostolic Church headquarters at Penygroes, Wales. His task was to do what missionaries were known for doing, establish and oversee schools and churches in the name of the maternal international mission, the Apostolic Church mission.

But arriving in Nigeria in 1937, Elton got caught up in the pervading atmosphere of revival that swept through the nation, the revival that began in 1918 at the close of the World War I and continued until the late 1930s.  Elton forged a bond with Joseph Ayobabola and served as a mentor to him. He translated Franklin Hall's book titled "Atomic Power with God with Fasting and Prayer" into Yoruba language so that Babalola could read it. This book influenced Babalola so much. 

After the demise of Babalola in 1959, Elton continued to raise a new breed of leadership in the Nigerian church. In the 1960s, he provided platforms in Nigeria for American evangelists such as T.L Osborn and Gordon Lindsay who were seeking to carry out evangelistic works in Nigeria. 

By the 1970s, Elton had become the father of Pentecostal Revival Movement in Nigeria, seeking out young people from universities and admonishing them to lay hold of their destinies in Christ. He went as far as connecting some of them to top American evangelists. Through out the 1970s until his death in 1987, Elton mentored several young men who eventually turned out to be the leading figures of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements of Christianity in Nigeria. 

Some of the men who Elton mentored are Archbishop Benson Idahosa, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, Brother Gbile Akanni, Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor W.F Kumuyi, Bishop Francis Wale Oke, Dr. Mike Oye, Apostle Geoffrey Numbere and several others. Pastor Enoch Adeboye visited Elton at Ilesha every fifty days while he was a lecturer of Mathematics at the University of Ilorin. Brother Gbile Akanni was also a frequent visitor at his place.

It was Elton who linked Idahosa with American healing evangelists, Gordon and Freda Lindsay. Both Gordon and Elton ordained Idahosa into ministry in 1971. When Idahosa quit his theological studies at Gordon Lindsay's bible college known as "Christ for the Nations Institute" in Texas, USA, he and Elton worked hand-in-hand in evangelizing Idahosa's native hometown of Benin City, organizing crusades at stadiums and drawing people to Christ by their thousands. Benson Idahosa died on 12, March, 1998 at the age of 59.