Chief Folorunsho Alakija
By Olusola Odunfa
Nigerian billionaire and Africa’s richest woman Folorunsho Alakija has donated a 23 million dollar (N34 billion) 250-bed medical research and training hospital to the Osun State University (UNIOSUN).
The facility, named the Modupe and Folorunsho Alakija Medical Research and Training Hospital, is expected to serve as the university’s main teaching hospital and a hub for specialist care, training and research.
Alakija, who is also the Chancellor of the university, said during the official opening ceremony of the facility that the project grew from a vision to help modernize health care in Nigeria.
She said consultations with international medical experts, architects and engineers shaped plans for a hospital that could curb medical tourism and strengthen training for doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
The complex includes 20 clinical departments and five non-clinical departments, a community health unit, maternity and neonatal services, research and diagnostic laboratories, and four operating theaters.
The equipment list also includes CT and MRI machines, ultrasound and X-ray suites, radiotherapy facilities and multiple intensive care units, alongside specialist services such as ophthalmology and a modern mortuary.
Periscope International reports that Alakija, 74, is the richest woman in Africa and Nigeria with a fortune currently estimated at over 1 billion dollars.
She is the founder of Famfa, an oil exploration and production company that owns a 60% working interest in Agbami, Nigeria’s deepwater Oil Mining Lease (OML) 127, the concession for the giant Agbami Field, a major deepwater oil discovery.
Alakija, now single, is a businesswoman and philanthropist with a sincere desire to help the needy, a fashion icon with an infallible sense of style, a caring mother and doting grandmother, and a friend in deed.
Educated in Europe, she first embarked on a career in office administration, then she went into banking where she remained, until she took a leap of faith and followed her heart and creative calling to establish her own business in the Nigerian fashion industry.
Her fashion house “Supreme Stitches” rose to prominence and fame within a few years, and later, as “Rose of Sharon House of Fashion”, became a household name.
As National President and lifelong Trustee of the Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria (FADAN), she left an indelible mark, promoting Nigerian culture through fashion and style.
Ever the entrepreneur, Alakija has set up related businesses: The Rose of Sharon Prints & Promotions which specializes in monogramming, heat/picture transfer and screen printing for promotional and gift items, and Digital Reality Print Ltd which specializes in highly technical digital large format printing.
She remains the only female in that industry in Nigeria to date. She included a direct imaging paper printing press to coincide with her 60th birthday in July 2011.
Alakija oversees the Rose of Sharon Group as the Group Managing Director and she is also the Executive Vice Chairman of her family’s oil exploration and production business, FAMFA Oil Limited , seeing to its strategic planning and day to day administration.
In addition to these, Alakija is the Executive Vice Chairman of Dayspring Property Development Company Limited, a real estate company with investments in different parts of the world.
