All Hail Farouk Ahmed, the Patriot

Dialogue With Nigeria By AKIN OSUNTOKUN

“In a broken society where anyone able to be within the circle of power brokers loot the treasury and take the funds out without investing in the country, Dangote is a welcome relief. Many Nigerians have had the opportunity and advantage to be pioneer investors in many sectors of our economic activities, particularly crude oil sector, which has really been our cash cow. What has any of them done with that monopolistic position? They have idle funds sitting in foreign banks and buy mansions all over the world. Let us have more private monopolies able to provide employment and invest locally.”- Supo Shonibare

A Question Of Integrity: Engr. Farouk Ahmed Responds

“Recent allegations regarding the financing of my children’s education have necessitated this response—not because I fear scrutiny of my finances, which I welcome, but because the timing and nature of these claims demand context that only three decades of public service can provide

“My appointment as NMDPRA Chief Executive in 2021 came with a clear mandate: implement the Petroleum Industry Act’s reforms with transparency and without favor.

“I accepted this responsibility understanding its implications.

“The allegation that I spent $5 million on my children’s Swiss secondary education is presented as evidence of corruption inconsistent with my official income.

“This requires factual correction.

“My annual compensation as Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA CEO, approximately ₦48 million including all allowances, is publicly available in our audited reports.

“Combined with legitimate savings from decades of federal employment, cooperative investments available to all civil servants, and family resources, funding my children’s education required neither corruption nor living beyond my means.

“These allegations resurface precisely when NMDPRA has enforced quality standards revealing substandard petroleum products in the market, implemented stricter licensing requirements, and insisted on transparent pricing mechanisms that eliminate opacity benefiting certain market players. This timing is not coincidental.

“I make no apology for prioritizing Nigeria’s interests over individual commercial preferences.

“Three decades of service to Nigeria’s petroleum sector have taught me that integrity is tested not in comfortable moments but when powerful interests demand compromise. These allegations represent such a test”.

If there is anything worse than the fact and figure-saturated allegations levelled against the former Chief Executive Officer of NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed, it is the false sketch of self-ennobling martyrdom he has provided as extenuation. The alibi reads like a citation on him at the occasion of being conferred with the Grand commander of the order of the Niger, GCON. It is one for the personal and national archives. It is a measure of the unique misfortune of Nigeria and how far the country has degenerated to a theatre of the absurd, that a disgraced public service official of the order and reputation of Ahmed actually believes he can persuade the Nigerian public to agree with the warped thinking that he is a misunderstood model public servant.

Extrapolating from the sordid history of the NNPC, this behaviour is almost certainly the rule, not the exception, the tip of the iceberg, (reflective of the Yoruba idiom that ‘whoever is caught amidst the multitude of pilferers, is the thief)’. There is the double jeopardyinherent in the revelation of legally ‘earning’ N48 million as annual personal salary and emolument. By the standards of Ahmed and the corruption laden oil industry, this ‘chicken change’ is merely a dessert to the main course menu of capital project expenditure and payoffs on sundry collusion in the subversion of Nigeria’s economic interest.

Testimonies to his ‘guilt by association’ include, “reports from 2022 to 2025 consistently showing that staff at Nigeria’s Kaduna (KRPC), Port Harcourt, and Warri refineries receive significant salaries despite the plants being largely non-operational or “ghost” facilities, generating zero revenue but incurring huge costs, leading to public outcry over waste and mismanagement by NNPC… In one year (around 2022), the three refineries cost the nation N136 billion in salaries for over 1,700 staff, despite generating no income, reports Punch The federal government has invested billions of dollars to maintain and turn around the state-owned refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri. But the refineries are not functioning”.

“Nigeria has reportedly spent $1.5 billion on the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery, a figure approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2021 for its overhaul…When the refinery was revamped in November 2024 after the rehabilitation programme, there were doubts about the operation of the refinery amidst allegations that it was a mere blending plant….But the NNPCL insisted that the 60,000 barrels per day Old Port Harcourt Refinery was up and running, with loading operations in full swing, contrary to insinuations in certain quarters”.

As it were, the Nigerian media bought the fraudulent NNPC protestations hook, line and sinker. It was indeed a sad day for the media as it took to clinking glasses to celebrate the resumption of production at the 60000 bpd Port Harcourt refinery after a 1.5 billion dollars rehabilitation. In the first instance, what for God’s sake was worthy of so much applause in spending 1.5 billion dollars to rehabilitate a 60000 bpd capacity, in terms of cost benefit analysis? Beware the perils of premature applause. The media frenzy had barely subsided when they had egg splattered on their faces. It turned out they were applauding a phantom as the vaunted cause celebre packed up within weeks of resumption.

It was, also, not less than a month ago that the NNPC malfeasance culture rebounded as “the economic and financial crimes commission, EFCC, declared former minister Timipre Sylva wanted in connection with an alleged case of conspiracy and dishonest conversion of $14,859,257(Fourteen Million, Eight Hundred and Fifty Nine Thousand, Two Hundred and Fifty Seven United States Dollars)”.

The one I can still not wrap my head around is the barely disguised resistance to the downward trend of the PMS gantry retail price fostered by the Dangote oil refinery (By the way this is an enterprise in which Nigeria has invested two billion dollars).

In saner climes, the crime would be classified as treason. If any productive purpose has being served by this exposure, it is the utility of gradually putting faces to the anonymity behind the oil subsidy scandal. These were/are the people cooking the papers, issuing oil import licences and certifying false declaration of cargo as duly met. This is the resource curse syndrome at its most brazen. Just what do we make of the outrage that no one, absolutely none, has been brought to justice on this open secret.

For perspective, let us recall the witness of former governor and former minister of aviation, Isa Yuguda, when he went public with his committee report on the Nigerian national petroleum corporation, NNPC. Inter alia he said “I am sad to let Nigerians know what I saw; we came across situations where subsidy was claimed on pipelines that never existed. They (NNPC and Marketers) just claim that they have pumped X amount of either finished products or crude.”

“Those that claimed to pump the products and those that are in the subsidy scam, they just fill papers, invoices and they claim subsidy on it.” When asked again if it was indeed the NNPC that was making these claims, Yuguda replied in the affirmative.“Who else is doing it,”. “I remember a friend of mine in the oil industry, who during a meeting of an economic think tank. He called the then President aside and said, ‘Mr President please stop this subsidy, we are tired of making money…We’re bringing in this fuel at an elevated cost and half of it is exported out of Nigeria by the same people collecting money for it”

The response of President Bola Tinubu was to look the other way and cast a vote of confidence on the man at the centre of the eyesore by reappointing Mele Kyari as the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Neither has the President deemed it worthwhile to invite the remorseful friend of Yuguda to come and tell all he knows as participant-observer whose conscience has not been completely overwhelmed by greed and avarice.

As Olisa Agbakoba, rightly noted:“A private investor has built the refining capacity our nation desperately needs, but faces systematic undermining from the very regulatory authority whose mandate is to support such investments”.

“When regulatory actions frustrate investments that create local capacity, generate employment, and reduce import dependency, they violate constitutional obligations.”

“We export raw crude only to import refined products at premium prices, perpetuating dependency rather than fostering development”.

Beyond Agbakoba, the larger argument inevitably takes us back to the imperative of privatisation and constitutional reforms, precisely the devolution and decentralisation of powers. As presently constituted, the Nigerian presidency is a self-aggrandising leviathan, where power corrupts and absolute powers corrupt absolutely. The licence to literally commandeer the public till without let or hindrance, is the motive for the desperate, mad and destabilising pursuit of the Nigerian presidency, especially as it has become the culture for Presidents to appoint themselves Minister of petroleum.

I have always argued that Nigeria is steeped in a systemic crisis, in which incidents like this cannot be treated as an isolated incident but as one more revelation of the need to unbundle a dysfunctional constitutional order that renders Nigeria prone to the predatory assault of a legion of rogue public officials and institutions. Under the current culture and trajectory of public service life in Nigeria, the likelihood is that Nigeria will soon move on and consign the Farouk Ahmed scandal to the dustbin of history (after making a sham run-around of a conniving prosecutorial system).

As Nigerians let down their guards, so will the case against Ahmed (the latest poster boy of resource curse syndrome) drift into especially if he can find his way into the ranks of the All Progressive Congress, APC, moreso as the reelection fever of Tinubu gathers momentum. The facility of the huge residual dollar loot will further strengthen his political utility and he may yet end up being tipped for a ministerial appointment in the event of Tinubu’s reelection, perhaps as minister of state in the petroleum ministry.

*Caveat: Mr Farouk Ahmed had since disowned the statements attributed to him which only him and no one else could have written-given the intimate personal information he provided. This column has chosen not to play along with this deception. As a matter of fact, the denial further reinforces the perception of inherent dishonesty.