63-year-old, Nigerian fashion designer and oil tycoon, Folorunsho Alakij, has given Oprah Winfrey a run for her money!
Alakija, who started her career as an executive secretary at SIjuade Enterprises, in Lagos, Nigeria is reportedly worth $3.3 billion, which is $300 million more than what Oprah is worth!
In the early 1980s, Folorunsho moved to London to study fashion design and shortly after she moved back to her native land and created a high end fashion label called, Supreme Stitches. Although she made a pretty penny in the fashion industry, most of her coins came from an oil and allocating license her company, Famfa Limited, recieved in 1993. The license allowed her to explore oil on a 617,000-acre block which is now called OPL 216.
Not only did she surpass Oprah, she also surpassed the wealth of Isabel Dos Santos, the world’s first African billionaire and was named in being one of the 100 Most Influential Women in the World by Forbes Magazine, in which she gives God all the glory in making it all possible.
“I have been referred to as “One of Forbes’ 100 Most Influential Women in the World,” she said. “But, who do I say I am and who does God say I am? Regarding wealth only God knows that because he is the only one who knows by how much he blesses each of his creations. He decides, he uplifts or lowers for reasons best known to him and in his time. So, who am I to determine my position?”
What makes even more influential is the fact that she revealed that she never went to college and was still able to pave a way for herself. “So I am 63 and I am not yet done,” she said. So what is your excuse? I never went to a University and I am proud to say so because I don’t think I have done too badly,” she said. “You do not have to have a university education to be able to make it so count yourselves privileged to have that education as part of the feather in your cap.”
And let’s just say she isn’t living too modestly either as it is reported that her assets include a real estate portfolio worth over $100 million and a $46 million private jet, I ain’t mad at her at all she deserves it! Moral of the story, work hard now so you can play even harder later!
SOURCES CITED: TIME.COM
http://time.com/3649223/richest-black-woman-folorunsho-alakija-oprah-winfrey-nigeria/
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