Ofili was born in Manchester to May and Michael Ofili. When he was eleven, his father left the family and moved back to Nigeria. Ofili was for some years educated at St. Pius X High School for Boys, and then at Xaverian College in Victoria Park, Manchester. Ofili completed a foundation course in art at Tameside College in Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester. and then studied in London, at the Chelsea School of Art from 1988 to 1991 and at the Royal College of Art from 1991 to 1993. During that time, he was in a relationship with fellow artist Tomma Abts. In the fall of 1992, he got a one-year exchange scholarship to Universität der Künste Berlin. Ofili visited Trinidad for the first time in 2000, when he was invited by an international art trust to attend a painting workshop in Port of Spain. He permamently moved to Trinidad in 2005. He lives with his wife Roba, former singer with trip-hop band Attica Blues,whom he married in 2002. He maintains a studio on Lady Chancellor Road, about ten minutes from downtown Port of Spain, in Trinidad.