It appears strange to discuss oil and football in the same sentence. But in Nigeria, these two “commodities” represent two of the most influential features in the lives of its people. Oil, because, obviously, this has remained the mainstay of country’s commercial life since its discovery in 1958.
Football, because it is the single most-followed sport across Nigeria. Both convey sentiments that have a significant bearing on the Nigerian life that is sometimes taken for granted. Oil has been variously described as a curse to our nation but also the single most important source of revenue, a source of delight and pain in equal measure.
Football? Some of the nation’s happiest moments have been associated with on-field success of the country’s football team, a sentiment that is reversed when the nation’s teams fail. Indisputably, Nigerians love football. In our common love for football, there is neither tribe nor religion. Football has come to be seen as the greatest source of unity for Nigerians, celebrating together any of the national teams’ successes and also collectively mourning our failures.
This was the case in early 2017 when the Super Eagles, the country’s senior team, lost a Nations Cup qualifier against arch-rivals, Bafana Bafana of South Africa, in a depressing 2-0 defeat at home. It was one of the low points of the country’s footballing history as Nigeria risked the prospects of missing out on another Nations Cup, Africa’s leading country competition. The Super Eagles were plagued with problems that were directly affecting on-field performances. The problems had a lot to do with money.
This was not strange.
Nigerian football teams have always had money issues because they have always depended on the government funding, largely epileptic and typically grossly inadequate for their needs. Despite the country’s love for football, corporate bodies demonstrate a disturbing reluctance to support the teams even when it is the obvious that football is a game Nigerians love. Indeed, this was the background that preceded the game against South Africa.
And this was the state of play when Benedict Peters, Founder and CEO of leading indigenous oil and gas firm, Aiteo Group intervened. Peters’ intervention was decisive and has changed the face of not only the national but local football. Peters’ move to re-engineer interest in the country’s football started in April 2017 when Aiteo signed a 5-year deal with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to inject N2.5 billion into providing support for the national teams’ technical staff starting from the Super Eagles.
This partnership saw the Group emerging as the NFF’s Official Optimum Partner. This support effectively eliminated the plethora of problems the teams were experiencing from funding salaries through to game-day support. By common admission, this intervention was regarded as the biggest catalyst of Nigeria’s emergence as the first African nation to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Aiteo and Peters did not stop there.
Aiteo expanded its participation in the country’s football industry with another N2.5 billion deal to sponsor the Federations Cup, Nigerian’s version of the English FA Cup and the oldest cup competition in the country. At the time, the tournament had not held for a couple of years and was losing relevance. The result of this deal was that the Federation cup was renamed the Aiteo Cup. The 2017 final emerged as one of the most publicised and attended in the tournament’s history.
Relevance returned to the competition especially as large financial rewards introduced, re-injected interest and participation from teams. The 2018 version produced one of the most absorbing football games in recent memory in Nigeria. With Peters’ support, Nigerians are once again falling in love with their local football; an unquantifiable contribution to Nigeria’s development, if sustained.
Aiteo’s interest has also extended to club football. Aiteo recently became the official sponsor of former Nigerian Professional Football League team, Nembe City FC, based in Bayelsa State, making it the first official corporate sponsor for a local football team. Ironically, its upstream interest is located in the same area where the football team is based, demonstrating its commitment and involvement in developing the local environment within which it operates. This has set the platform for other corporate bodies to take an interest in local football.
Off-field, Aiteo has demonstrated the importance of appreciating those previously involved in the game. Aiteo sponsored the maiden edition of the Nigerian Football Federation Awards which was aptly named the 2017 AITEO-NFF Awards. Aiteo also took up exclusive sponsorship of the 2017 CAF Awards.
Usually, businesses are rewarded for investments in their core business. But it takes unique acumen and commitment to make investments outside its primary area of activity that have huge social impact.
This is what Peters has led Aiteo to do, linking its business to a social need that has direct effect and impact on millions of Nigerians and Africans. Peters has always recognised that football is not just a game. His vision of the game at its most impactful is most evident in his belief on the game’s influence on the development of youth across the world. Writing in 2017, Peters shares this vision..
“Africa’s young are already shaping today and redefining tomorrow with their creativity, passion and innovation. I believe that the greatest gift that our generation can give them is to continue to provide platforms for aspiration, recognition and inspiration. But ideas like “opportunity” or “potential” can be an abstract enough concepts for adults, never mind the younger generation –– many of whom have been overlooked by the decisions of their governments not to allow funds raised from investors to trickle down into stronger education systems, apprenticeships and advancement.”
“In football, the notion of opportunity is far from abstract. Football has always been a unifying factor and a great tool for promoting integration and development. But more than that, it is a global currency –– a language spoken in the U.K. as much as it is in Brazil, China and Nigeria. And in football, we see most tangibly the bold young role models and ambassadors of Africa who are inspiring others and have set the pace in their pursuit of excellence.”
Peters ventured into business in 1999 and has since grown Aiteo into a major player in the nation’s oil and gas space. His investments now span oil, gas, mining, power and agriculture. At inception, Aiteo’s main focus was in the downstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas sector. However, as Peters once shared in an interview with the media, “I pushed my group to start thinking outside the box and told them that it was time to develop more capacity across the entire value chain and that it was time to now play in the E&P sector and not just be leaders in the downstream sector.”
In 2015, his oil and gas subsidiary, Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company Limited (AEEPCo), won the bid for the largest onshore block in sub-Saharan Africa (OML 29) at US$2.85 billion from Oil Major, Shell following divestment of some of its onshore assets. Aiteo got the operatorship of a major crude evacuation pipeline with the deal. Peters leveraged on local content capacity to ramp up production from 23,000 barrels per day(bpd) to 90,000bpd in less than two years of operation. Three years after, the company is set to hit a peak production of 100,000 bpd as the largest indigenous producer. Peters currently has plans to inject $4.3 billion into the acquisition of additional offshore assets and a projection to increase oil production capacity to 250,000 bpd in the short term.
Peters has since expanded his businesses, extending transformational operations to different countries across Africa and beyond. Employing over 10,000 direct and indirect employees, Aiteo boasts of a strong international presence, with existing and prospective business operations in Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and offices in Geneva, London and Paris. With the aim to provide African industries with the raw materials to advance cleaner energy sources, technology and innovation, he is involved in copper and cobalt production in some parts of Africa.
He has also invested heavily in floating solar energy power projects within the sub-Saharan region. Aiteo’s downstream business, which is the pioneer subsidiary in the group is also still very active. Its services across borders include bulk petroleum products storage and the trading, marketing and distribution of refined products.
Through another of his companies, he is exploring gas-to-power technology, to develop a pipeline of power generation projects, leveraging on the available gas resources from his upstream business. He also chairs the Joseph Agro Foundation, which he founded in 2014 as part of his contribution to the development of agriculture in Nigeria. The Foundation has invested over $150 million in the large-scale cultivation of Africa’s mostconsumed staple food, rice. It is also addressing social and environmental issues such as unemployment and water shortage in the sector.
For all his exertions, especially in enhancing Africa’s ability to take charge of its natural resources and independently develop its energy infrastructure, Peters has been recognised, acknowledged and notably honoured by some of the country’s and world’s leading organisations. In 2014, he was given the Marquee Award for Global Business Excellence at the Africa-US Leadership Awards in 2014. In the same year, he won the “Leadership CEO of the Year”. In 2015, Peters received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Awards in the “Economic Empowerment” category. He was listed as one of the ‘50 Most Influential Nigerians in 2017’ by BusinessDay.
In a most decisive recognition, in 2018, he was named Forbes’ Oil and Gas Leader of the Year 2018. He also won ‘Oil and Gas Man of the Year’ at the 2018 Guardian Awards. These are besides numerous awards and recognition that Aiteo Group has received for its outstanding performance in the Oil industry in the short period of its involvement.
Through his companies and foundations, Peters provides selective grants, donations and seed capital to local individuals and groups. In 2014, he was named the 7th richest person in Nigeria and 17th richest in Africa by Ventures Africa with a net worth of US$2.7 billion. Peters is now commonly mentioned amongst Africa’s most successful corporate leaders. His success in the oil and gas sector has continued to inspire millions of Nigerian entrepreneurs who look to model his accomplishments in achieving global excellence and impacting society.
He holds a degree in Geography and Urban Planning from the University of Benin. He started his career in the early 1990s with a short stint in national service at Union Bank and then Ocean and Oil Limited (now Oando Plc). He subsequently moved to MRS Oil Nigeria Plc as Group Executive Director where he rose to become the Managing Director. He left MRS in 1999 to Aiteo Group.
Recognitions
Benedict Peters and Aiteo have won a number of awards that include:
• Benedict Peters as Africa’s Oil and Gas Leader at the Forbes Best of Africa Awards in September 2018
• Aiteo as Oil and Gas Company of the Year (Upstream Indigenous) and Oil & Gas CSR/Sustainability Company of the Year (Upstream) at the Guardian Awards in June 2018
• Benedict Peters given Marquee Award for Global Business Excellence at the Africa-US Leadership Awards dinner hosted by the African Energy Association in 2014
• Aiteo as Indigenous Oil and Gas Company of the Year at the Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) Awards, in July 2018
• Benedict Peters as the Leadership Newspaper’s ‘CEO of the Year 2014’ award for championing a local content and bolstering Nigeria’s greater capacity to manage its oil assets
• Benedict Peters given the prestigious Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Awards in Washington, DC, in 2015, for driving “Economic Empowerment” in Nigeria.
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