Folurunsho Alakija on Marriage - Show Your Mother-in-Law Unconditional Love

Folurunsho Alakija is known as Nigeria's richest woman and probably the richest black woman in Africa and the world. She started her career as a secretary, then after studying fashion design in England, she founded Supreme Stitches, a Nigerian fashion label. She diversified into oil prospecting with her company, Famfa Oil, which owns one of Nigeria's most prolific oil blocks. Speaking recently at her 37th wedding anniversary, she recollected the early years of her marriage and what has kept her and her husband together this long.

It is obvious they started out on a solid footing of love and affection, when her husband insisted on marrying her against his mother's wishes. But it was not an easy road. Hear her;

“My husband’s mother was Igbo, while her dad was from South West here. And because of this, my mother in-law never wanted a Yoruba woman to marry her son. She was not comfortable also with my Muslim background then. She wanted an Igbo daughter in-law, but my husband said it’s me or nothing.

It was a tough battle until God finally prevailed... Whenever she wanted something from my husband and was not getting it immediately, she would start attacking me and saying I’m the one stopping her son from doing her biddings.


It was also an issue when she asked for a baby girl from me and I could not give her. I have four boys in my marriage... At some point, I was encouraged to fight back by my husband, but I refused and kept praying to God to change her.

Despite my mother in-laws opposition towards me, I made sure we took her to US and UK on holidays with us severally and kept showering her with unconditional love. My joy is that we settled before she passed on."

Alakija, ...also challenges husbands, to continually support, provide and pamper their wives with unconditional love and affection.She maintains that these “special secrets” were the ingredient that keeps endearing her darling husband to her, thus helping to renew and strengthen their undying love for each other on a daily basis.

“No marriage survives without love, respect and support from the couple,” she insists.

With husband

With Family - Folurunsho at 60 and 35 wedding anniversary in 2011

“My husband is my best friend, biggest adviser and supporter. We’ve known each other for 40 years and have been married for 37 years now with four boys.

Even though we work in the same office, I always ensure that we kiss twice in a day, morning and night. I still wash his undies until six years ago that he insisted I should stop.

I also prepare his special vegetable dish, does his manicure and pedicure regularly. I also go to the airport to pick him whenever he is returning from foreign trips.

It gives me joy whenever his friends praise my vegetable dish based on what my husband tells them during discussions...” she further discloses with a gentle smile on her famous face, urged women to be loving and submissive to their husbands.

With PSquare and Aliko Dangote

Folurunsho Alakija was part of the presidential delegation [picture above] to the Nigeria-South Africa Business Forum that took place in Cape Town, South Africa recently.