Africa’s richest woman, Folorunsho Alakija has come out to disown yesterday’s campaign posters that flooded some parts of Lagos. The poster’s message read “ Lagos 2015 Alakija for Governor” .
The oil magnate in a statement issued today asked Lagosians to ignore the posters saying it they didn’t from her.
The statement read,”It has come to my notice, that there are posters and fliers being circulated in Ikorodu and other parts of Lagos State announcing me as a Governorship aspirant.
“This is not true and I hereby confirm that I have no such intentions. Therefore, I disassociate myself from any persons or group of persons, posters or fliers in circulation about me contesting for governorship.
“I have been paying attention to my calling from God to look after widows and orphans through The Rose of Sharon Foundation and I am also in service most importantly to God’s work as a Minister of his Word through His Ministry committed to us as the Rose of Sharon Glorious Ministry International.
“God has not called me into politics and I have never been involved in politics. Please ignore whatever you may have read purportedly portraying me as a governorship aspirant.
In 2013, Alakija was named by Forbes as the richest black woman on earth thwarting the television show-host and entreprenuer, Oprah Winfrey. By November, 2013, Forbes put her net worth at $2.5 billion. But by January 2014 her net worth had skyrocketed to $7.3 billion courtesy Mail of UK, beating Oprah Winfrey whose net worth is now $2.9 billion to the second place.
She worked as a secretary in a Nigerian Merchant bank in the 1970s and later left to study fashion design in England. She subsequently founded Supreme Stitches, a Nigerian fashion label that catered for upscale clientele, including the late Maryam Babangida, wife of Nigeria’s former military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida.
It was during the regime of Babangida that her company Famfa Oil got 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 then President Olusegun Obasanjo acquired a 50% interest in the block. Famfa Oil went to court to challenge the acquisition, and the Nigerian Supreme Court reinstated the 50% stake to Famfa Oil in May 2012.
