A public and personal conflict has erupted at the highest levels of Nigeria’s petroleum sector, with billionaire industrialist Aliko Dangote directly attacking the chief executive of the nation’s oil regulator.
During a press briefing at his Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos, Dangote called for a full investigation into the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed.
Dangote leveled a serious allegation, stating that Ahmed paid approximately five million US dollars for the secondary school education of his four children in Switzerland.
The business magnate demanded that Ahmed appear before the Code of Conduct Tribunal to publicly explain how he was allegedly able to finance such an expense on a public servant’s salary. “I cannot understand why somebody who has worked all his life in government, and he has four children whose school fees he has paid $5m for,” Dangote stated, contrasting the alleged expenditure with the hardship of ordinary Nigerians struggling to pay much smaller fees.
He framed the allegation as a matter of economic sabotage, arguing that such actions, if true, undermine public trust and investor confidence in the critical downstream petroleum sector. Dangote insisted he was not calling for Ahmed’s removal but for a proper and transparent investigation.
He vowed that if Ahmed denied the claims, he would not only publish details of the alleged tuition payments but also take legal steps to compel the foreign schools to disclose the financial records.
This allegation is not new, as a similar claim was made by a protest group in July 2025. At that time, the NMDPRA forcefully debunked the accusations, describing them as an orchestrated smear campaign based on false information.
When contacted for a new comment on Dangote’s specific attack, the NMDPRA spokesman, George Ene-Ita, declined to respond, stating simply, “For now, no comment.”
Beyond the personal allegations, Dangote used the platform to voice broader grievances about what he described as a corrupt and failing regulatory environment.
He accused powerful import interests of profiting at the nation’s expense and warned that allowing traders to influence regulation was destroying the sector’s integrity.
Dangote claimed that 47 refinery licenses had been issued with no new refineries built because the environment was not conducive, positioning his own massive refinery project as a solution being sabotaged by entrenched forces.
