The chief executive of the Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Mr Farouk Ahmed, has been accused of corruption by the president of Dangote Group, Mr Aliko Dangote.
Speaking on Sunday, the business mogul alleged that Mr Ahmed paid about $5 million for the secondary school education of his four children in Switzerland.
He wondered how the NMDPRA chief, who is a government official, could afford to pay the huge amount of money for the school fees of his kids abroad when there are several students in the home state of Mr Ahmed, Sokoto State, wandered around because of lack of funds for education.
He called on the authorities to institute a full scale investigation into the activities of the NMDPRA boss, with the outcome made public.
“I have actually had people making complaints about a regulator who has actually put his children in secondary school.
“And that secondary school education, which is six years, four of them cost Nigeria $5 million. I mean, you cannot imagine somebody paying $5 million for educating four children,” Mr Dangote disclosed during a media briefing at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Fertiliser Plant, Lekki, Lagos.
“From Sokoto, where he comes from, people are struggling to pay N100,000 for school fees. A lot of children are at home, not going to school, because of N100,000.
“I cannot understand why somebody who has worked all his life in government, and he has four children whose school fees he has paid $5 million for,” he added.
“This is a system where some of us are taxpayers. When people are complaining, we also complain, because when I pay tax, I want to see my money put to use, not stolen.
“I don’t know why the authority chief executive, Mallam Farouk, has four children educated in Switzerland at the cost of $5 million for their secondary school education alone, not university,” he alleged.
“My children went to secondary school in Nigeria. They did not go outside Nigeria to attend secondary school,” Mr Dangote stressed.