Double Joy for the Okoyas: Shade Turns 49 as Daughter Olamide Weds Imran Gobir
Summary
Saturday, April 25, 2026 brought a rare convergence of milestones for one of Nigeria’s most prominent families the Okoyas of Eleganza Group as businesswoman and Managing Director Dr. Folashade Okoya marked her 49th birthday on the same day her firstborn daughter, Olamide, began her wedding proceedings. The double celebration drew admiration across Nigerian society, with Chief Razaq Okoya describing it as the greatest birthday gift his wife could have received.
For the Okoya family, April 25, 2026 was never going to be an ordinary Saturday. It was already Shade Okoya’s birthday. Then destiny added something more.
The household of Alhaji Rasaki Akanni Okoya, CON, founder of the famous Eleganza conglomerate, is aglow with double joy this weekend as his wife, Dr. Mrs. Folashade Okoya, MON, marked her 49th birthday with close friends and associates describing the atmosphere as warm and reflective, filled with prayers, appreciation, and hope for the future, as the family also celebrated the engagement of their beloved first daughter, Olamide.
Folashade Nimota Okoya, born April 25, 1977, is a Nigerian industrialist, businesswoman and fashion commentator who serves as the MD/CEO of Eleganza Group, the leading conglomerate in Nigeria’s manufacturing industry founded by her husband.
Mrs. Okoya has spent over a decade in active leadership within the company, with her role particularly focused on operations at Eleganza Industrial City the company’s large production base which began operations in 2012 overseeing day to day activities, coordinating departments, and ensuring that production meets expected standards.
Shade announced the wedding on her Instagram page, unveiling the union between Olamide and Imran Saro Gobir, describing the engagement as the coming together of two distinguished lineages grounded in shared values, faith, and purpose. “The engagement reflects not only a celebration of love, but the beginning of a partnership built on submission to Allah, mutual respect, and legacy,” she wrote.
The groom, Imran Gobir, is the son of the late Abdullahi Abubakar, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Iraq, adding historical significance to the union. The families expressed deep gratitude to Almighty Allah for the joyous milestone and prayed for a marriage filled with barakah, peace, and enduring happiness.
Chief Razaq Okoya, formally known as the Aare of Lagos, officially announced Olamide’s engagement to Imran Saro Gobir in a message to his wife on her 49th birthday. “There could be no greater gift on this special day than the joyous engagement of our beloved daughter, Olamide Raheeda Okoya, to Imran Saro Gobir. We pray that their union is blessed with love, peace, and prosperity, and that Allah grants them a joyful and lasting marriage,” he said.
Olamide, the eldest of the four children born to Chief and Mrs. Okoya, graduated in 2024 from Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, where she studied English with Business Studies. She has kept a low public profile, staying away from the level of attention associated with her parents. She had earlier shared pre-wedding photos reflecting her Muslim faith, drawing admiration online.
Mrs. Okoya married Chief Okoya when she was 21 and is blessed with four children Olamide, Subomi, Oyinola, and Wahab. Their marriage was the talk of town at the time, with the couple sealing their bond with love and commitment that has made their union one of the most talked-about celebrity marriages in Nigeria.
Among her siblings, Olamide’s brother Raheem Okoya, popularly known as Sir Raheem and also an executive director at Eleganza Group, has gained attention as a music artist and social media personality particularly on TikTok, where his songs and content have attracted a growing audience, reflecting a shift in how younger members of prominent families engage with the public.
Congratulatory messages have poured in from across Nigerian society, with well-wishers celebrating both the birthday and the wedding, while admiring the graceful alignment of two major life events in a single family on a single day.
Analysis
The Okoya double celebration is the kind of story that resonates far beyond the society pages not simply because of the family’s wealth and prominence, but because of what their story represents in the broader Nigerian imagination. Chief Razaq Okoya is a self-made industrialist who built Eleganza from a small trading business into a manufacturing empire that employs thousands of Nigerians. The fact that his wife Shade who married into the family at 21 has grown into the Managing Director of that same empire says something meaningful about the evolution of women’s roles in Nigerian business dynasties. She did not inherit the title in name only; by all accounts she has been actively managing operations, coordinating departments, and expanding the company’s production capacity for over a decade. That trajectory makes her 49th birthday not just a personal milestone, but a professional one worth marking. Olamide’s wedding introduces the next chapter: the handover of legacy, identity, and expectation to a new generation. Her choice to maintain a low public profile despite her family’s prominence, and to pursue education in the United Kingdom before returning home, reflects a thoughtful approach to her own path. Her fiancé’s background son of a former Nigerian Ambassador suggests a union that carries its own weight of history and expectation. The families’ framing of the engagement as one rooted in faith, submission to Allah, and legacy rather than spectacle speaks to a deliberate choice about how this transition will be narrated. What strikes most about the Okoya story on April 25, 2026, is the convergence of continuity and change a woman who built a career managing one of Nigeria’s oldest consumer goods companies, watching her firstborn step into marriage on the very day the world remembers her own arrival. In a country where celebrations are often extravagant and public, the Okoyas appear to have chosen something rarer: a moment both joyous and quietly profound.
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