In 2018, the Center for African Studies launched the Folorunso Alakija Distinguished Lecture on Religion and Public Life in Africa. This annual lecture is sponsored by the Harvard Center for African Studies and generously supported by the Center for African Studies’ Africa Advisory Board Member, Folorunso Alakija.
This lecture provides a platform for the Harvard University Center for African Studies to connect faith leaders with the Harvard community and beyond in a conversation about the constantly shifting and contested boundary between the secular and the sacred, the public and the private.
Mrs. Folorunso Alakija is Executive Vice-Chairman of Famfa Oil Limited. She is a businesswoman and philanthropist with a sincere desire to help the needy, a fashion icon with an infallible sense of style, a loving wife, a caring mother, and a doting grandmother.