Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Refinery and chairman of Dangote Group, has released a document outlining details of his allegation that the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, spent about $5 million on the foreign education of his four children.
The document, which began circulating publicly on Tuesday and is personally signed by Dangote, follows his earlier call for a probe into Ahmed over claims that his lifestyle exceeds his income as a public official.
According to the document, Dangote alleges that Ahmed’s children attended some of the world’s most expensive schools in Switzerland and the United States. The named institutions include Montreux School, Aiglon College, Institut Le Rosey, and La Garenne International School, with each child reportedly spending about six years in secondary education abroad.
The document estimates that tuition, accommodation, air travel, and living expenses amounted to roughly $200,000 per child per year. This places the combined annual cost for four children at about $800,000 and the total expenditure over six years at approximately $4.8 million, rounded up to $5 million.
Dangote further alleged that one of Ahmed’s children, identified as Faisal Farouk, recently completed an MBA at Harvard University. The document claims tuition costs of about $150,000, with an additional $60,000 for upkeep and related expenses, bringing the total to an estimated $210,000 in 2025.
As of the time of this report, Farouk Ahmed has not issued a public response, and the NMDPRA has released no official statement. When similar allegations surfaced previously, the regulator dismissed them as false.
DAILY POST reports that a coalition of civil society groups under the banner Lawyers in Defence of Good Governance, which initially made the allegation, later retracted it, describing the claim as misinformation. The House Committee on Petroleum Resources and Downstream has also urged both Dangote and Ahmed to stop further public exchanges over the matter.
