Dangote Details $5m Foreign Tuition Allegation Against NMDPRA CEO

Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Refinery and chairman of Dangote Group, has released documents detailing allegations that the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, spent about $5 million on foreign education for his children.

The document, which circulated publicly on Tuesday and was personally signed by Dangote, alleged that Ahmed expended the sum on the secondary and tertiary education of his four children abroad, mainly in Switzerland and the United States.

The disclosure followed Dangote’s recent call for a probe into Ahmed over claims that he was living beyond his legitimate income.

According to the document, Dangote claimed that Ahmed’s children attended some of the world’s most expensive schools, including Montreux School, Aiglon College, Institut Le Rosey and La Garenne International School. Each child was said to have spent about six years in these institutions.

The document estimated that annual tuition, accommodation, air travel and living expenses stood at about $200,000 per child. This figure was put at roughly $800,000 annually for four children and about $4.8 million over a six-year period, with total secondary education expenses rounded to approximately $5 million.

Dangote further alleged that one of Ahmed’s children, identified as Faisal Farouk, recently completed an MBA programme at Harvard University. The document claimed that tuition for the programme was about $150,000, with an additional $60,000 spent on upkeep and related expenses, bringing the total cost to around $210,000 in 2025.

As of the time of filing this report, Ahmed has not publicly responded to the renewed allegations, and no official statement has been issued by the NMDPRA. However, when similar claims surfaced months ago, the regulator dismissed them as false.

It is also recalled that a coalition of civil society organisations under the banner of Lawyers in Defence of Good Governance, which initially made the allegation against Ahmed, later retracted the claim and described it as misinformation.

Earlier, the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) had called on both Dangote and Ahmed to desist from further public exchanges over the issue.