If you are as obscenely wealthy and have unfettered access to foreign currency like Benny Peters, billionaire businessman behind Aiteo, you can live anywhere in the world as your vanity dictates.
The Capital however, has it on good authority that Benny who bought Shell OML 29 some months ago for $2 billion dollars, has relocated to Ghana. And expectedly, Benny is painting Ghana red, even as you read.
Benny, a favourite of the government and the oil resources minister, Diezani Madueke during the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015), is versed in the art of putting money to good use for the enjoyment and pampering of self.
In the mafia-esque oil and gas industry, with its unwritten and understated Omerta, Benny is a primus inter pares. Because of his meteoric rise on the ladder of billions, many say he is the kind of guy that you give a rope and he automatically wants to become a cowboy.
Interestingly, if fortune can be harvested as gold and silver grapes and blessings flourish like leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys, the life-path and home of Peters would glitter like a barn full of treasure and a life well spent.
Peters is the founder of Aiteo Group and is responsible for managing the company in terms of strategic development, policy formulation and execution. A graduate of Geography and Regional Planning from the University of Benin, Peters has over 14 years of strategic experience in energy trading, commodity trading and banking.
Six of his seven years in energy trading were in senior and top executive positions where he gained invaluable industry knowledge serving at top Nigerian energy trading companies that include Ocean and Oil Limited, MRS Oil and Gas (Managing Director) and OUR GROUP (Group Vice President). He was very close to Diezani during the latter’s tenure as Nigeria’s petroleum minister.
