Mrs Folorunsho Alakija, a
Nigerian billionaire oil tycoon,
Fashion designer and
philanthropist is now the
richest black woman in the
word, according to report published by Ventures Africa,
an African business magazine
and news services. Alakija, 61, is worth at least $
3.3 billion- contrary to a
recent Forbes Magazine
ranking which pegs her net
worth at only $600 million.
She is $500 million richer than media mogul, Oprah Winfrey,
whose wealth estimated at $
2.7 billion in September. Folorunsho Alakija is the
founder and owner of Famfa
Oil, a Nigerian oil company
which owns a 60 percent
working interest in OML 127
that produces about 200,000 barrels a day. Alakija, was born into a
wealthy, polygamous
Nigerian family. She started
out her professional career in
the mid 70s as a secretary at
the now defunct International Merchant Bank of Nigeria, one
of the country’s earliest
investment banks. In the early 80s, Alakija quit
her job and went on to study
Fashion design in England,
returning to Nigeria shortly
afterwards to start Supreme
Stitches, a premium Nigerian fashion label which catered
exclusively to upscale
clientele. The business
thrived, and Alakija quickly
made a tidy fortune selling
high-end Nigerian clothing to fashionable wives of military
bigwigs and society women. Oil Prospecting License
In May 1993, Alakija applied
for an allocation of an Oil
Prospecting License (OPL). The
license to explore for oil on a
617,000 acre block – (now referred to as OPL 216) was
granted to Alakija’s
company, Famfa Limited.www.vanguardngr.com/2012/12/nigerias-alakija-becomes-richest-black-woman-in-the-world-displaces-oprah-winfrey/