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By Christy Anyanwu
Even after the curtains closed at the Carlton Swiss Hotel, Enugu, the impact of the Exhale Conference 2026 is still being felt across the Coal City State. Conversations are still happening.
Held on March 28, 2026, the first edition of the Exhale Conference, themed, “Breathe Again,” drew over 245 registered attendees. Organised by the Women of Valour Global Mission (WOVGLOM), it was not a conference in the conventional sense. It was, by every account, an encounter.
Worship ministers, CBN Kosi, Ugwumsinach Emmanuel, and Golden Vessel opened the atmosphere with a depth of worship that did not just start the programme. It opened people. And in that space, something began to move.
Lady Lovett Obiakalusi, the convener, set the tone early: “Many of us have been holding our breath. Holding in pain, holding up everyone around us. Today, this is your permission, from God and from this space, to finally let it out. To breathe again.”
The keynote address was delivered by Prof. Edith Nwosu on the topic, “Letting Go: Releasing the Past into the New Season,” a message that cut to the very heart of why so many had gathered. With gentleness and authority, she walked the room through what it truly means to release the past, not as an act of forgetting, but as an act of faith. The audience was still. Many were in tears.
She was joined by Dr. Tochukwu Anagor, Bishop Deborah Macfoy Akachukwu (PhD), Dame Ifeoma Oluebube Egbuonu, Apostle Ugochukwu Ibeneme, Chukwuma Ephraim Okenwa(CEO), and Pastor Gloria Chukwueke, each bringing their own depth and anointing to the day’s sessions.
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One of the most moving moments of the conference came through Gozie Udemezue, a lawyer, who did not just speak to the audience. She spoke from within it. In a moment of raw, unscripted vulnerability, she shared from her own journey, a testimony of pain, of God’s faithfulness, and of what it looks like when the Lord steps into the middle of something that felt beyond repair. She did not have to say much. The weight of what God had done in her life said everything. There was hardly a dry eye in the room. And for many in attendance, her words became the permission they had been waiting for to finally believe that God could do the same for them.
Between sessions, attendees were treated to a warm breakfast, and as the day drew to a close, a full lunch was served, a welcome pause that gave people room to breathe, connect, and carry on conversations that the morning had started in their hearts. It was one of those details that made Exhale feel less like a programme and more like a family gathering.
A free medical outreach rounded out the day, with attendees screened for HIV, Hepatitis B, and various cancers. Medications were dispensed at no cost. Because at Exhale, the whole person matters.
“We had on record about 245 people,” says the convener, Lady Lovett Obiakalusi. “They came for the screening. They came for the word. They came for something they couldn’t always name. And they left with it.”
For many who attended, Exhale 2026 was not just a conference. It was a turning point. A line in the sand between who they were when they walked in and who they chose to become when they walked out. There was something in the air that day that made the idea of a new season feel less like a cliche and more like a genuine possibility. People who had quietly given up on certain dreams, certain relationships, certain versions of themselves, left with something rekindled. A sense that God was not finished. That the story was not over. That what felt like an ending was actually a threshold. Exhale 2026 reminded an entire room of people that new beginnings are not reserved for the young, the unbroken, or the unburdened. They are available to anyone willing to exhale the old and inhale what God has next.
The first edition has set a standard. And if the testimonies still trickling in from Enugu are anything to go by, the movement has only just begun.
However, Lady Obiakalusi, gave credence to the sponsors of the conference.
“To our sponsors, Sir Ben Obiakalusi, Chief Vincent Dozie, Chiesiek , Chimamanda , Dr Adaobi Joy, Ezenwa, Debora Cynthia , CBN Kosi, Compt Adigun and the LOC for their amazing support in cash and kind contributions. Their support went a long way to making sure that the conference was a huge success”.
