The Reason for Fountainhead Investments

Introduction - The Reason behind the Blogspot

I am British Born and Bred with a Nigerian Father, late and Jamaican mother, a rare combination in the 60's. Having grown up without my father I decided to visit Nigeria in search of him. To cut a long story short I discovered my Fathers homeland in Ekiti state and it was revealed to me that I was of Royal Birth, letters Patent from the Nigerian High Commission. I am of the Royal Household of Agungun, Igbara Odo the Arajaka being HRH Edward Jaiyola.

The whole story was told on BBC's "Hometruths" with the late John Peel Because I was not connected to my Nigerian side, I had not bothered to visit Nigeria all these years due mainly from malicious rumours of corruption and internally a "rogue state". However I came to the conclusion that I should bear witness myself and took a leap of faith to visit the place alone and with no contacts. What impressed me at the time was that while I had to pay one or two bribes to Nigerian custom officials, at the borders ironically, overall the people were very friendly and helpful on many levels.

I almost felt ashamed that I held the views, that had been portrayed to me in the media and decided to study Nigerian History Old and recent. Especially in regards to traditional rulers and their diminishing powers due to the nascent elites of the political classes. If we can remember the Traditional Rulers were very much a part of the Colonial policy of "Indirect Rule" only to be discredited by the young educated elite that were forming the new political and power base. Visiting the Town of my father and the welcome I received as a Prince, I realised the dichotomy between the “new” power base of the Politicians and the still respected Traditional rulers, whose status had tumbled from being demi gods to almost puppets of the Federal Government. Having visited Africa a number of times in different countries, one cannot but be touched by the spirit of the continent and at the same time the poverty of the peoples. One can be overwhelmed by it. Where doe’s one start to help? I decided that through focusing in the areas of where my roots are more could be achieved. You cannot “save” the whole of Africa but you can certainly help and assist a small community, we in the West have many opportunities to do so. This is where the idea of the network first came, however it has not borne any fruit. Another paradox of discovering that I am a Prince is that I do not have a Princely income or lifestyle so I have been working on trying to generate income, it goes without saying legally, to enable me to improve my own circumstances and then that of my community. I learned that being a Prince in Nigeria can be a burden if you do not have the relevant funds or employment, cousins of mine are too ashamed to take “lowly work” due to the perception and status inhabitants have of what a prince should be doing, also due to polygamy there are an almost surplus of Princess & Princesses. Many in an attempt to be “modern” drop their title altogether especially when they migrate to the City. Now the main challenge is this. The words Prince & Nigeria in the world means corruption, 419 and other scams. I find it very lazy that the Nigerian government doesn’t do more to counter this image. But the fact remains this is the belief of many, neither doe’s it help that a small and cunning group of individuals or syndicates through their activities help in perpetuating this tarnishing Nigeria’s reputation ( though it has been tarnished ever since independence) . Nonetheless, it is believed that by leading through example one can dispel the myth that “All Nigerians, and all Nigerian Princes are self proclaimed fraudsters. Reading this you can imagine this is a humongous task for a small and lone individual to assume.

What I am looking to achieve is to use the power of the Internet and today’s global commerce and harness it between London and West Africa. For the objective of Profit, with those profits the money could be used for social purposes. I am a great believer that more important than University education, that generates a dissatisfied youth as on graduation the jobs are not there and is a major cause of the Brain drain, that the promotion of apprenticeships would do more to help Nigeria, with skills in Building, electronics, IT, Hairdressing, Roofing, etc. Also the Tourism industry. To this end I intend to form a Proprietary Trading company based in London. The company would work with Commodity Producing companies that export providing consultancy services . West Africa is abundant with commodities such as Crude Oil, Sugar, Coco, Gold even Palm Oil. Such products are trading on the international exchanges but with minimum of African involvement. The use of futures would save such companies millions of dollars by hedging and securing price stability. This is an area that is not used so much with the smaller companies with $10 - 50,000,00 turnovers.

The Firm will trade financial products such as Government Bonds, Oil, Indices etc. In addition, working with Small to medium size businesses with turnovers between $5 - 50 Million that require private equity. Fountainhead Investments would act as an introducing broker with UK and European Private Equity houses seeking to invest in growth sectors in Africa. This would make the venture very profitable for all shareholders, stakeholders and African businesses. However before we can progress there is ground work to do. This is what this website will be primarily about, Investment opportunites in the international financial markets with a reference to West Africa. Today Africa, a long neglected continent, is back en vogue, while France has never forgotten it’s involvement, and Britain’s has been at arms length, the new superpowers namely America and China who are taking an interest, and the dogma of the cold war has unfrozen the bipartisan relationships of yesteryear. Western Africa with it’s new democracies and global technology has meant unlimited opportunities for Africa which, in my opinion need and require the Diasporas to give an interpretation of the implications this can and will have on Africa, and hopefully entice them to return and build the country up.

Finally I hope this has answered any questions you may have had based on the purpose of my blogspot. I will feature programmes and ventures and how they may achieve my aims. With Kind Regards Prince Peter