Nigerian billionaire Folorunsho Alakija threatens legal action over $1.27 million fraud report

Nigerian oil tycoon Folorunsho Alakija has threatened legal action over a report that claims the country’s anti-graft agency is investigating her oil company for fraud and money laundering, calling the report false and defamatory.

In a statement posted on her official X account on Thursday, Alakija, the executive vice chairman of Famfa Oil Ltd., demanded that the report and every copy of it be taken down.

“All false and defamatory publications concerning this news must be immediately removed, deleted, and depublicised from all platforms,” the statement said. “Failure to comply with this notice will leave our legal team with no alternative but to pursue appropriate legal actions.”

The post carried a screenshot of the report with the word “DISCLAIMER” stamped across it. It did not respond to the individual claims.

What the report claims

The report, published by a Nigerian online news site on Wednesday, alleged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is investigating Famfa Oil over a $1.27 million fraud, undeclared foreign transfers, altered documents and money laundering. It cited court documents from a legal dispute between Famfa Oil and the commission.

None of the claims has been tested in court, and the EFCC has not publicly confirmed any investigation of Alakija or her company.

The same site alleged in September that Famfa kept three Bombardier private jets in Nigeria for more than a decade with import papers that were expired, backdated or missing, and that the company faced a federal demand for ₦8.85 billion ($6.6 million) in unpaid customs duty on one of the aircraft. That dispute is before the courts.

Alakija, who has long been ranked as Africa’s richest woman, made her money from a single deepwater oil block. In 1993, Famfa was awarded an oil prospecting licence for a 617,000-acre block about 100 kilometers off the Nigerian coast, an area that was seen at the time as high risk.

In 1996, she brought in Star Deep Water Petroleum, a unit of Chevron Corp., as technical partner and transferred a 40% stake to it. The block became Oil Mining Lease 127, which holds part of the Chevron-operated Agbami field. Agbami started production in 2008 and grew into one of Nigeria’s most productive deepwater fields.

After oil was found, the Nigerian government claimed a 40% interest in the block and later sought another 10%. Alakija challenged the claims in court, and the Supreme Court ruled in her favour in 2012. Her family keeps a 60% interest in the block. Alakija owns Famfa with her husband, Modupe Alakija, who chairs the company.

Before oil, Alakija worked as a secretary in banking and then started a fashion label, Supreme Stitches, which she later renamed Rose of Sharon House of Fashion. She runs the Rose of Sharon Group, which has interests in oil, real estate, printing and fashion. In 2008, she set up the Rose of Sharon Foundation, which supports widows and orphans with scholarships and business grants. (Billionaires Africa)