Chairman of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), Aliko Dangote has accused the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed of “paying $5 million” to Swiss secondary schools for his children.
Dangote spoke during a news conference at Dangote Petroleum Refinery on Sunday, accusing the NMDPRA executive of corruption and economic sabotage.
The billionaire said Ahmed paid the said amount for four of his children, covering a period of six years.
Although Dangote did not mention the name of the Swiss schools, he said the authority’s CEO was living above his means, calling on the federal government to investigate.
The group president said such expenditure raises serious questions 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.”
The billionaire said the NMDPRA chief should be given a chance to clear his name by being investigated and not sacked.
Dangote said the law should be allowed to take its course, but threatened to take legal steps against the school to ensure the disclosure of Ahmed’s payment, if he 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 ( dollars) 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 N100,000.”
“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.”
Speaking more broadly on the health of the downstream sector, Dangote accused the leadership of the NMDPRA of colluding with international traders and oil importers to frustrate local refining through the continued issuance of import licences for petroleum products.
He said despite his refinery’s effort to keep pump prices low, some “people are really bent on destroying the economy of the country” by making sure that they keep issuing licences to bring in products from Russia.
The businessman disclosed that the NMDPRA has issued “reckless licences” for the importation of “about 7.5 billion litres” of Premium m
Motor Spirit (PMS) for the first quarter (Q1) of 2026, despite assuring Nigerians of adequate supply.
He said the downstream sector is under severe strain, alleging the presence of entrenched interests that profit from fuel imports at the expense of national development.
“There are powerful interests in the oil sector. It is troubling that African countries continue to import refined products despite long-standing calls for value addition and domestic refining. The volume of imports being allowed into the country is unethical and does a disservice to Nigeria,” Dangote said.
Dangote stressed the need for a clear separation between regulatory oversight and commercial interests, warning that allowing traders to influence regulation would undermine the integrity of the sector.
“The downstream sector must not be destroyed by personal interests. A trader should never be a regulator. Forty-seven licences have been issued, yet no new refineries are being built because the environment is not conducive,” he said.
The group chairman also assured Nigerians that the pump price of PMS would fall further, saying petrol would sell at no more than N740 per litre from Tuesday, beginning in Lagos.
This, he said, is because his refinery reduced the gantry price to N699 per litre.
He said the MRS filling stations would be the first to reflect the new price, maintaining that Nigerians would ultimately benefit from local refining, even as fuel importers incur losses.
The businessman noted that the company was working around- the- clock to ensure that recent reductions in the gantry price were fully reflected at the retail level.
“We will enforce the low price. We will make sure of that,” Dangote said.
The mogul also disclosed that the refinery had reduced its minimum purchase requirement from two million litres to 500,000 litres to enable 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 N699 per litre,” he said.
He also 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 markets.
“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.
