The needs of a female billionaire are unusually legion: from high-priced art, diamonds and platinum to gold jewels, filthy rich women like their male counterparts, don’t mind splurging a fortune and more on expensive toys. Add a private island and coastal estate to the mix and you have a stereotypical staple for the pleasure of the superrich alpha female.
However, if there is one distinctive marker of class or status symbol amongst the Nigerian alpha female, the filthy rich in particular, it is ownership of an expensive private jet. At the last count, just few women boast ownership of the status-enhancing aircraft and they include: Folorunsho Alakija, the richest black woman in the world, Diezani Alison-Madueke, former Nigeria’s Minister for Petroleum, Hajia Bola Shagaya, oil magnate and politician and Daisy Danjuma, wife of Alhaji Theophilus Danjuma – who bought her the private jet as a gift on her 60th birthday years ago.
Ownership of a private airplane has undeniably, given rise to a culture of acquisition that has become central to the forging of a new personal identity and independent tradition that is tirelessly endorsed by the contemporary alpha female and coveted by the middle-class of this social divide. More importantly, ownership of the high-end jets makes it guarantees easier access for this influential alpha quartet between their homes and business domains. Besides guaranteeing easier access to important business and political engagements, the private jets enable Alakija, Danjuma, and Shagaya hassle-free travel to and fro their favourite exclusive beach Eldorado and other guilty pleasures that catches their fancy. Of course, not every alpha female owns an island, but for this extraordinary women, the private jet metamorphoses as an island of sort in the perpetuation of the peculiar indulgences.
But while the alpha women bask in the privileges and elevated status accruable from their ownership of the private planes, it is unclear if they will upgrade anytime soon, like the few privileged corporate titans and high net worth entrepreneurs that have upgraded to bigger planes – leather seats, plush bedrooms and opulent boardrooms – in apparent defiance of economic recession characteristic of several economies of the world.
