The name Festus Alani Fadeyi once evoked a mixture of admiration, envy and respect in Nigeria’s aristocracy and entrepreneur class. He is not one of your run-of-the-mill businessmen but one of the leading figures in the nation’s oil and gas sector. He owns Pan Ocean Oil Corporation, one of Nigeria’s indigenous thriving oil exploration and production companies. Of course, not a few were highly conscious of his wealth and status. Fadeyi was loaded to the hilt with choice properties across highbrow areas of Lagos and other cities across the world. But wealth is a fickle thing.
It isn’t as tangible as people like to think. Sadly, Fadeyi has had his own fair share of the challenges of doing business in the country. For over two years, Fadeyi battled with a myriad of troubles not unconnected with the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) which was said to have taken over his company’s assets and those of its subsidiaries over huge bank loans that led to the collapse of a second generation Nigerian bank. Fadeyi, through Pan Ocean, allegedly took the loans considered one of the biggest loan portfolios in the country to fund the firm’s oil and gas upstream projects operated under Joint Operating Agreements and Production Sharing Contracts with and on behalf of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
However, the vagaries of the crude oil market made the timelines for the settlement of funding partners linger. Yet Fadeyi and his energy company are mindful of their obligations. Nevertheless, the matter was later resolved when an agreement for the debt settlement was reached by the warring parties. For Fadeyi, that was indeed his trying period as his vast fortune was literally dwindling away. Since that ugly development, the oil tycoon has recoiled to his cocoon and is no longer visible on the social circle.