Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has ignited a fresh storm in Nigeria’s oil sector, accusing the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed, of corruption and economic sabotage.
Dangote made the explosive allegation on Sunday during a news conference at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, claiming that the regulator allegedly spent $5 million to educate four of his children in Swiss secondary schools over six years, an amount he said cannot be justified by a public officer’s earnings.
According to the billionaire, such spending raises red flags about conflicts of interest and the credibility of regulatory oversight in the downstream petroleum industry, prompting him to call for an urgent federal investigation.
“I’ve had people actually complaining about a regulator who put his children in secondary school, and that secondary school education, which is six years, four of them cost Nigeria $5 million,” Dangote said.
“My children went to a Nigerian secondary school. They didn’t go outside Nigeria to attend secondary school.
“… I don’t know why the authority chief executive, Mallam Farouk, has four of his children that he educated in Switzerland at the cost of $5 million for their secondary school education alone, not university.
“And I know that one of them just finished Harvard. So, I want to see what kind of system we are operating that people are now busy destroying a country, taking money from the government, because his income does not match paying this kind of fees.”
While stopping short of demanding Ahmed’s removal, Dangote insisted that the regulator must submit himself to scrutiny to clear his name.
“The Code of Conduct Bureau, or any other body deemed appropriate by the government, can investigate the matter. Let them see whether his income matches the five million he has paid [as] school fees for six years for four of his children, this is without tickets,” he said.
“He doesn’t need to be sacked. But let him clear that he has not compromised his various positions in government at the cost of Nigerians, when a lot of people in Sokoto can’t even go to school because of 100,000 naira.”
Dangote went further, threatening legal action if the allegation is denied, vowing to compel the Swiss schools to publish payment records.
“If he denies it, I will not only publish what he paid as tuition in those secondary schools, I will sue those schools to publish how much of the fees he has paid for all the time that they were there, including the other information which we don’t have. He should give us the universities they went to and spent four years. How much he has paid.”
Amid the controversy, Dangote also offered Nigerians some relief, announcing that petrol prices would drop further, with PMS expected to sell at no more than N740 per litre from Tuesday, starting in Lagos, following a cut in the refinery’s gantry price to N699 per litre.
He said MRS filling stations would be the first to implement the new price, assuring Nigerians that local refining would continue to crash fuel costs.
“We will enforce the low price. We will make sure of that,” Dangote said.
The billionaire also disclosed that the refinery had slashed its minimum purchase volume from two million litres to 500,000 litres to accommodate more marketers, including IPMAN members.
“So if you come to the refinery today, you will get PMS at N699 per litre,” he said.
Dangote also took a swipe at fuel imports, insisting Nigerians deserve better-quality products at lower prices.
“Nigerians have a choice to buy better quality fuel at a more affordable price or to buy blended PMS at a higher rate. Importers can continue to lose, so long as Nigerians benefit,” he added.
The allegations have once again thrown the spotlight on the bitter face-off between Dangote and petroleum regulators, a clash that continues to shake Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
