Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has accused the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr. Farouk Ahmed, of spending $5 million over six years on elite schools for his children in Switzerland.
Dangote insisted the NMPDRA Chief Executive Officer (CEO)Farouk Ahmed must be investigated by the appropriate authorities such as the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to ascertain if his earnings as a public officer matches his high-profile expenditure.
Speaking at a Sunday press conference, Dangote questioned the affordability for a career public servant and alleged broader economic sabotage against his $20 billion refinery.
No response has come from Ahmed or his agency as of Monday.
The President of the Dangote Group, made the bombshell allegation, while accusing Farouk of engaging in economic sabotage against Nigeria, by approving massive petrol imports.
The NMDPRA regulates one of the Dangote Group’s major businesses, the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos.
The central financial allegation is that Engr. Ahmed public sector salary could not have financed spending over $5 million on his children’s education in elite schools abroad, specifically prestigious Swiss schools, the implication of that being alleged corrupt earnings.
Dangote also accused the NMDPRA leadership of economic sabotage for continued issuance of import licenses for refined petroleum products, undermining the domestic downstream oil sector and Nigeria’s economy.
“The regulator Farouk put four of his children through elite secondary schools in Switzerland and paid tuition fees of $5 million over a six-year period on his children’s education, however his income as a public servant does not match his ability to pay those fees,” Dangote said in a press briefing in Lagos.
“He (Farouk) has worked all his life in the public sector, so how did he make such an amount of money to educate his children overseas and pay such a huge amount of money? The downstream must not be destroyed by one person for personal interest.”
Dangote alleged that import licenses covering approximately 7.5 billion litres of PMS (Petrol) were issued for Q1 2026, despite significant local production capacity, which forces local refiners to buy crude at a premium and struggle to compete with subsidized or deliberately encouraged imports.
The NMDPRA said last week that the Dangote Refinery evacuated 23.52 million litres per day of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol on average in the month of November, adding that the figure fell short of the planned Dangote Refinery domestic PMS or petrol supply of 35 million litres a day.
Dangote however disputed the NMDPRA figures stating that the regulator was only reporting what had been evacuated from the refinery and not the total output that was produced.
“Let the legal process take its place. The CCB needs to see if his (Farouk’s) salary matches the $5 million spent on his children’s school fees. He must not compromise his government job at the cost of Nigerians, when a lot of people cannot pay N100,000 school fees in Sokoto State where he comes from,” Dangote said in the press briefing with MoneyCentral in attendance.
Dangote said that very few foreigners are operating in Nigeria’s downstream sector due to the corrupt practices and regulatory uncertainty hindering the sector.
