DANGOTE HUMBLES FAROUK: A Billionaire’s Blow To Regulatory Overreach

By

Olabode Opeseitan

We were all expecting a battle royale between Aliko Dangote and Farouk Ahmed. But it turned out to be a mismatch.

It was like still finding your seat for the biggest heavyweight fight of the year only to be told at the gate that the fight was over. A knockout with the first punch in the first minute, like Mike Tyson’s 91-second demolition of Michael Spinks in 1988. No rounds. No drama. Just a thud, and then silence.

On December 17, the Presidency confirmed what many had suspected: Engr. Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), had resigned. No press conference. No rebuttal. No explanation. Just a quiet exit, days after Dangote publicly accused him of regulatory sabotage and financial impropriety.

The timing was too precise to be coincidental. Farouk had earlier disowned a statement attributed to him, but his resignation, without addressing the weighty allegations, spoke louder than any denial. In the court of public perception, it was an admission by omission.

The Courage to Confront the Leviathan

Aliko Dangote did what few billionaires in Nigeria dare to do: he named names. He didn’t whisper in corridors or send emissaries to plead for regulatory leniency. He stood before the cameras and accused a sitting regulator of undermining Nigeria’s economic sovereignty. That takes clarity. That takes courage.

For years, many of Nigeria’s wealthiest industrialists have suffered in silence, navigating a labyrinth of regulatory rascality. They build, invest, and employ, only to be ambushed by institutions that wield discretion like a cudgel. Dangote, having poured over $20 billion into building Africa’s largest refinery, refused to play along.

Yes, it’s fair to say he has skin in the game. He wants his refinery to succeed. He wants a return on investment. But when a regulator licenses the importation of the very products the refinery was built to produce, under the guise of “preventing scarcity”, it ceases to be oversight. It becomes sabotage. Economists have a name for it: exporting jobs, importing poverty. Yet the ‘preventing scarcity’ rationale rings hollow amid a $20 billion investment in local refining.

Beyond Resignation: The Questions That Remain

Farouk’s departure should not be the end of the story. It should be the beginning of a full-scale investigation. The allegations Dangote raised, about regulatory overreach, about the suspicious funding of elite foreign education, cannot be swept under the carpet. Resignation is not exoneration.

The relevant authorities such as the Code of Conduct Bureau, the EFCC, the National Assembly must probe both the institutional decisions and the personal finances. Nigerians deserve to know whether the regulator was acting in the national interest or in service of entrenched interests.

A New Chapter, or More of the Same?

President Tinubu has moved swiftly, nominating Engr. Saidu Aliyu Mohammed to replace Farouk. A seasoned technocrat with decades of experience in gas infrastructure and petroleum policy, Mohammed’s résumé is impressive. But résumés don’t regulate. People do.

The real test will be whether the new leadership at NMDPRA and NUPRC can restore public trust, enforce the Petroleum Industry Act with integrity, and resist the gravitational pull of vested interests. The oil and gas sector is not just a revenue stream. It is the spine of Nigeria’s economy. And when the spine is compromised, the whole body falters.

Dangote threw the first punch. Farouk didn’t return fire. Now the nation must ask: what might he have been hiding, if anything, and what do Nigerians deserve to know?

This is a victory for all Nigerian investors, and a reminder that regulatory power must serve the national interest, not sabotage it.

#NMDPRA
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ICPC Nigeria
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Dangote Industries
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Economic and Financial Crimes Commission