He played college basketball in the United States at North Carolina and flirted briefly with the NBA before moving on to a successful career in Europe.

The son of a German mother and a Nigerian father, Okulaja was born in Nigeria but moved to Berlin with his family at the age of three.

During the 1997–98 NCAA season, he was a member of new coach Bill Guthridge's successful "six starters" rotation with Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Ed Cota, Shammond Williams and Makhtar N'Diaye.

Okulaja was the first player in the history of UNC basketball who led the squad in scoring, rebounding, three-pointers made and steals.

[6] Okulaja played professionally for a variety of Euroleague teams, including ALBA Berlin in the 1994–95 season winning the FIBA Korać Cup and again in 1999–00, and later RheinEnergie Köln (2006–07) in Germany; CB Girona (2000–01 and 2003–04), Barcelona (2001–02), Unicaja Malaga (2002–03) and Pamesa Valencia (2004–05) in Spain; and Benetton Treviso in Italy (2004).