Former billionaire, Festus Fadeyi has gotten to that threshold in a man’s life when brooding tragedy and its dark shadows can only be lightened by recalling great moments of the past.
On Modupe Alakija, a serene, residential street in Victoria Island, Lagos, a stately mansion fittingly named the Grand Villa stands out from other equally beautiful mansions that dot the street. Those who are lucky to have entered the gate and explored the interior describe it as a testament in class, splendour and hi-tech security aside the fact that it is walled round by a very high fence. This is the private home of oil and gas mogul, Festus Fadeyi who is also the chairman of Pan Ocean Corporation, an indigenous independent oil and gas company. But, not any longer.
That mouth-watering mansion, which had served as the Fadeyi family’s home for several decades alongside others, has been confiscated by the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON. The federal government agency took over Fadeyi’s Pan Ocean Corporation’s assets and those of its subsidiaries over bank loans totalling about N240billion. Other properties seized from him include 33b, Adebayo Doherty Street, off Admiralty Way Lekki Phase 1; FF Towers, Plot 13/14 Ligali Ayorinde Avenue, Victoria Island; No. 8, Modupe Alakija Crescent, Ikoyi; No. 14, Modupe Alakija Crescent, Ikoyi, Lagos; Ark Towers situated at No. 17, Ligali Ayorinde Avenue, Victoria Island, and Plot 5 and Plot 822, Samuel Manuwa Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Fadeyi was a director cum shareholder at Skye Bank and used his position to secure multi billion naira loans when defaulting on bank loans did not occasion countless sleepless nights and the economy was still buoyant and nothing in the forecast showed that the business he invested the money in would tank atrociously. The oil and gas businessman was sacked, alongside other members of the board of directors, by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, due to the bank’s liquidity and non-performing loans.
Before his sack and this eventual comeuppance, the former billionaire was a devout family man and father of five. Loose billions came with a new awakening and hunger for life’s pleasures. He morphed into one of those money men who make the world of otherwise anonymous young ladies go round, showering them with expensive gifts including designer wears, bags and jewellery and for the luckier or more street-wise ones, a well-appointed apartment or a mansion in a choice area of town.
A controversial On-Air-Personality was said to have benefitted immensely from Fadeyi, earning herself a plush apartment on Bank Road, Ikoyi. Despite the opposition of his family to the relationship with the divorced social media celebrity, Fadeyi went headlong and invested emotions and good money. Stripped bare of his home and other properties, where does Fadeyi go from here?