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.
Since 1991, I have dedicated my professional life to Nigeria’s petroleum sector, rising through merit and competence from a junior engineer in the Department of Petroleum Resources to my current position as Chief Executive of the NMDPRA.
This journey, spanning many administrations, economic cycles, and countless regulatory challenges, has been guided by a single unwavering principle: The national interest of Nigeria transcends all personal considerations.
A Career Built on Technical Excellence
My entry into petroleum administration came through Nigeria’s competitive civil service examination, not political patronage.
I spent my formative years in the technical divisions, crude oil marketing, gas supply monitoring, and downstream operations.
These are divisions, where decisions are measured not by political expediency but by engineering precision and market realities.
By 2012, I had risen to General Manager of the Crude Oil Marketing Division, overseeing Nigeria’s most critical revenue stream during a period of unprecedented global oil price volatility.
Those years taught me that regulatory integrity is not merely about following rules, but about understanding that every decision affects millions of Nigerians who depend on affordable, reliable energy.
When I became Deputy Director in 2015, inheriting responsibility for downstream regulation amid fuel scarcity and pricing controversies, I learned that principled positions often create powerful opponents.
My appointment as NMDPRA Chief Executive in 2021 came with a clear mandate: implement the Petroleum Industry Act’s reforms with transparency and without favour.
I accepted this responsibility understanding its implications.
Reforming a sector characterized by decades of opacity, preferential licensing, and regulatory capture would necessarily antagonize entities whose business models depended on that very opacity.
The Education Question: Facts Over Innuendo
The allegation that I spent $5 million on my children’s Swiss secondary education is present- ed as evidence of corruption inconsistent with my official income.
This requires factual correction.
Three of my four children received substantial merit-based scholarships ranging from 40% to 65% of tuition costs, verifiable information are available to any authorized investigation.
My late father, a Northern Nigerian businessman who established education trust funds for his grandchildren before his 2018 passing, provided additional support consistent with our cultural traditions of collective family investment in education.
When scholarships, family contributions, and my own savings accumulated over three decades are properly accounted for, my personal financial obligation was entirely consistent with someone of my professional standing and length of service.
My annual compensation as NMDPRA CEO, approximately N48 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.
I have submitted detailed asset declarations to the Code of Conduct Bureau every year since entering public service. Every income source, investment, and significant expenditure is documented and available for scrutiny.
I hereby publicly authorize all educational institutions my children have attended to disclose financial records to authorized Nigerian government investigators, confident that such disclosure will reveal the substantial gap between allegation and reality.
As well it must be noted that schools abroad do not accepts fees that are not legitimately earned, this is why in the Nigerian social media parlance, they call it saner climes. Regulatory Independence and Its Discontents.
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. The characterization of NMDPRA’s Q1 2026 import licensing approvals as “economic sabotage” fundamentally misunderstands our statutory mandate.
Section 7 of the Petroleum Industry Act obligates us to ensure supply security and prevent scarcity. Granting import licenses when domestic supply proves insufficient is not sabotage, it is our legal duty.
A single-source supply model, regardless of ownership, creates dangerous vulnerabilities that no responsible regulator can ignore.
Since 2021, NMDPRA has published detailed monthly supply reports, established public data portals showing licensing and pricing information, and submitted to rigorous audits by international firms.
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