Aliko Dangote has called for an official probe after alleging that the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority spent five million US dollars on secondary school fees for four children in Switzerland.
The comment was made during a media briefing at Dangote Refinery in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, where the business magnate linked the claim to wider concerns about governance and regulatory credibility in the downstream oil sector.
Dangote said the reported expenditure was inconsistent with a public servant’s declared earnings and contrasted sharply with the financial realities facing many Nigerians. He urged anti-corruption and asset verification agencies, including the Code of Conduct Bureau, to scrutinise the regulator’s asset declarations and asked for transparency from the school alleged to have received the fees.
The News Chronicle understands that Dangote offered to publish details to support the allegation if the claim was denied and that he framed the issue as symptomatic of deeper conflicts of interest that, he argues, have harmed investment and spurred departures by foreign operators in the sector. He also warned that regulators should not act as traders in the industries they oversee.
The allegation arrives amid broader scrutiny of Nigeria’s oil sector, including parliamentary probes into past export earnings and civil society demands for revenue accountability. The NMDPRA and the named executive have not publicly responded to Dangote’s comments at the time of filing.
