Aliko Dangote, chairman of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), has alleged that Farouk Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), “paid $5 million” in school fees to Swiss secondary schools for his children.
Dangote made the allegation during a news conference at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery on Sunday, accusing the NMDPRA chief of corruption and economic sabotage.
According to the billionaire businessman, the amount was paid for the secondary education of four of Ahmed’s children over a period of six years.
Although he did not name the Swiss schools involved, Dangote claimed that the regulator was living above his means and called on the federal government to investigate the matter.
The DIL chairman said such expenditure raises serious concerns about potential conflicts of interest and the integrity of regulatory oversight in the downstream petroleum sector.
“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.”
Dangote said the NMDPRA chief should be allowed to clear his name through investigation rather than being dismissed outright.
He said the law should be allowed to take its course, but warned that he would take legal action against the schools involved to compel disclosure of the payments if Ahmed denies the allegation.
“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.”
“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.”
‘Petrol to Sell for ₦740 Per Litre in Lagos’
Dangote also assured Nigerians that the pump price of premium motor spirit (PMS) would fall further, saying petrol would sell for no more than ₦740 per litre in Lagos from Tuesday.
He attributed the anticipated reduction to the refinery’s decision to cut its gantry price to ₦699 per litre.
Dangote said MRS filling stations would be the first to reflect the new price, adding that Nigerians would ultimately benefit from local refining, even as fuel importers incur losses.
He noted that the refinery was working round the clock to ensure that reductions at the gantry level were fully reflected at retail outlets.
“We will enforce the low price. We will make sure of that,” he said.
The DIL chairman also disclosed that the refinery had reduced its minimum purchase requirement from two million litres to 500,000 litres, allowing more marketers, including members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), to participate.
“So if you come to the refinery today, you will get PMS at ₦699 per litre,” he said.
Dangote further highlighted quality differences, noting that products supplied through MRS and other offtakers from the refinery were straight-run fuel, unlike blended products imported from overseas.
“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 latest allegation deepens the long-running rift between Dangote and petroleum sector regulators, which has been widely reported.