Apostle Folorunsho Alakija, a billionaire businesswoman has explained that it hurts her a lot when people connect her getting an oil block to the fact that she produced “blouses” for the late Mrs. Maryam Babangida, the former first lady.
She was engaged in an interview with Arise TV to celebrate her 70th birthday where she spoke about some alleged rumours concerning how she acquired her oil well.
According to her, the only favour she got from Mrs. Babangida was to link her up for a meeting with the Petroleum Minister. She noted that after the meeting, one thing lead to the other and she finally got the oil bloc.
In her words: ”We got back to Nigeria and she came knocking at my door, gave me some documents. She had some clients that were looking to lift crude oil form Nigeria and she wondered whether I might be able to speak to some of my clients, one of whom is the late Mrs Babangida. I said Okay, I would go and see her and see how she can help.
I got there and she (Mrs Babangida) said Okay, I can book an appointment for you to see the Petroleum Minister. I went to see the Petroleum Minister. What they (my family friend) wanted was to lift crude and the Petroleum Minister said Listen, the current administration at the time really wanted to move away from that and prefer Nigerians to be more involved in that rather than giving that out to foreigners.”
”So we parted ways. I said to myself, now that I have an inroad to that place, why don’t I find something I can do. All I wanted was a contract to boost my pocket. I still wanted to carry on doing my fashion, I love it.
So I went back. I asked Mrs Babangida to help me book another appointment and I went to see the Minister and I told him that I was interested in finding something to do with the NNPC. I was given all soughts of different options- catering for those offshore, transporting crude from one location to another, stuffs like that.
So, I would sit down, write my letter and take it there. Sometimes I had to wait six months to get the appointment. Sometimes four months. I would go back and he would punch holes in what I had come to offer and I would go back, dejected, and I would go and do some more homework and then I would get Mrs Babangida to book another appointment.”
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