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.
