A “megachurch” leader who draws more than one million followers to his annual conference in Nigeria will visit Leatherhead.

Dr William Kumuyi, who has a 125,000-strong congregation in Lagos, will speak at a Pioneer Engage Church networking event at Costa Coffee, in the High Street, Leatherhead, at 7pm on Friday.

He will also take part in an all-day open meeting for business, arts, education and religious leaders at the United Reformed Church, in Epsom Road, Leatherhead, on Friday, October 22, before heading to the Leatherhead Theatre for “an evening of celebration, teaching and envisioning” from 7.30pm.

Simon Elgar, a leader of the Pioneer Engage Church, said: “It’s very interesting because when he comes to this country he could go anywhere, he has got a network of churches in this country and there are far more obvious places for him to be, London being one.

“The fact he is in Leatherhead is a pretty interesting scenario.”

He said Dr Kumuyi was good friends with Jon Noble, an advisor at Leatherhead’s Pioneer Engage Church and former chairman of the National Charismatic Leaders Conference.

However, Dr Kumuyi decided himself that he wanted to travel to the market town.

Mr Elgar said his visit has created “a bit of a buzz” within the Christain community, adding: “They want to do it to address English people. They’ve come not wanting to do it their way, they want to do it our way to interact with typical English people, because obviously Nigeria is a very different environment and has a very different culture.”

Dr Kumuyi, who went to university in England, oversees 5,000 churches within his Deeper Christian Life Ministry in Nigeria, and 3,000 across the rest of the world, including about 30 in the UK.

Pastor Gerald Coates, founder of the Evangelical Pioneer Network of Churches in the UK, and Mr Noble will be among the speakers at the free event on October 22.

For more information, call the Pioneer Engage Church on 0785 652 1874, or email contact@pioneerengage.org.uk.