Thursday, December 18, 2025 - President Bola Tinubu has asked the Senate to confirm new chief executives for the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission following the resignation of the heads of both agencies.
The request was conveyed in separate letters sent to the
Senate on Wednesday, December 17.
Farouk Ahmed resigned as Chief Executive of the Nigerian
Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, while Gbenga Komolafe
stepped down as Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory
Commission. Both officials were appointed in 2021 by former President Muhammadu
Buhari after the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act.
The development was confirmed in a statement issued by the
President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
The resignations come amid public allegations by Aliko
Dangote, chairman of the Dangote Group, who accused Ahmed of spending about
five million dollars on the secondary school education of his children in
Switzerland.
In an advertorial published in BusinessDay, Dangote said
Ahmed paid the amount to educate four of his children over a six year period.
On Monday, December 15, Dangote alleged that Ahmed “paid $5
million” to Swiss secondary schools for his children’s education, describing
the action as “economic sabotage and corruption”.
In the advertorial, Dangote named the children as Faisal
Farouk, Farouk Junior, Ashraf Farouk and Farhana Farouk. He said the schools
they attended included Montreux School, Aiglon College, Institut Le Rosey and
La Garenne International School.
Dangote said the estimated annual cost of tuition, airfare
and upkeep per child was about 200,000 dollars, amounting to 800,000 dollars
per year for the four children.
According to him, the total living expenses and air travel
per child over six years amounted to 1.2 million dollars, bringing the total
for all four children to 4.8 million dollars. He said the overall cost of
tuition and upkeep reached approximately five million dollars.
The billionaire businessman also raised questions about the
tertiary education expenses of Ahmed’s children, stating that tuition, upkeep,
airfare and related costs averaged about 125,000 dollars per year over four
years.
“This adds up to $500,000 for four years per child,
totalling $2 million for all of them,” Dangote said. He further claimed that
one of the children, Faisal, completed an MBA at Harvard University in 2025,
saying, “Faisal just finished the 2025 Harvard MBA at $150,000 and $60,000 for
upkeep, tickets and other incidentals. Total equals $210,000 spent in 2025 for
Faisal’s MBA.”
Dangote said Nigerians deserve to know the source of the
funds, adding that the spending was carried out by a public officer “while many
parents in his home state of Sokoto cannot afford to pay N10,000 school fees
for their children and wards”.
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