Forbes named Mrs Folorunsho Alakija as the richest woman in Africa according to its November 2012 edition.
She ventured into the oil business many years back; she has an oil bloc that pulls in N157 million a day. She is the Vice Chairman of Famfa Oil and Gas limited and has emerged the richest woman in Africa according to Forbes November 2012 edition, with a net worth of $600million, which is about N94 billion.
The 61 year old former FADAN president is married and has four children, she also runs a charity organisation, known as Rose of Sharon Foundation, that helps widows in Nigeria.
Folorunsho Alakija started her career in the mid 1970s as a secretary at the now-defunct International Merchant Bank of Nigeria, one of the West African nation’s earliest investment banks.
In the 1980s, after studying fashion design in England, she founded Supreme Stitches, a Nigerian fashion label that catered to upscale clientele. Her biggest break came in oil. In 1993 Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida awarded her company, Famfa Oil, an oil prospecting license which went on to become OML 127, one of Nigeria’s most prolific oil blocks. Famfa Oil owned a 60% stake in the block until 2000 when the Nigerian government, led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, unconstitutionally acquired a 50% interest in the block without duly compensating Alakija or her company. Famfa Oil went to court to challenge the acquisition, and in May this year, the Nigerian Supreme Court reinstated the 50% stake to Famfa Oil.
Chevron owns the remaining 40%.
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