Contrary to insidious insinuations that one of Africa’s richest women, Hajia Bola Shagaya, and an esteemed colleague on the all-time Nigeria’s Rich List, Tunde Folawiyo, are at loggerheads, close friends of the two billionaires say nothing can be further from the truth. Recently, rumours made the rounds that Tunde, scion of the illustrious Folawiyo dynasty, got on the wrong side of Hajia Shagaya when he defaulted on the rent of a highbrow apartment in Abuja. Relations between them were said to have deteriorated so badly that they avoided each other. However, we can reveal authoritatively that nothing of such happened, instead, they have mutual love and respect for each other. Apart from their shared business interests, Tunde and Hajia Shagaya have a lot of common friends. Yes, Tunde rented an apartment from Bola years ago and he never defaulted in paying his rents! According to an insider, Tunde was a good tenant to Bola.
Hajia Shagaya is the founder and CEO of Bolmus Group International, a diversified Nigerian conglomerate with interests in oil, real estate, banking, communications and photography while the real estate development arm of the group builds and owns dozens of luxury residential properties in some of Nigeria’s priciest neighbourhoods. She is also the CEO and founder of Voyage Oil and Gas Limited which was awarded an oil exploration license by the Nigerian government in 2012 while her other oil company, Practoil Limited, is one of the largest importers and distributors of base oil in Nigeria. Tunde, on the other hand, helms the Folawiyo business conglomerate, which one of its subsidiaries, Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Company Limited, operator of the OML 113 offshore in Lagos, announced the commencement of production of crude oil in 2015. Tunde was rated the 39th richest person in Africa in 2015 with an estimated net worth of $650m.