After settling well into marital life, Mohammed, billionaire Aliko Dangote’s nephew, is also finding his feet in the international oil industry.
The young man, whose wedding in December 2018 to Sara, the daughter of Fouad Hayel Saeed, a wealthy Yemeni-born, Malaysia-based businessman, was a showstopper, is now the go-to man for the Indonesian national oil company, Pertamina.
Sources say Indonesia is in a hurry to find a source of crude oil to replace the volumes it had been buying from Iran before the renewed US sanctions.
Fortunately for Mohammed, his wife’s father is the managing director of the Malaysia and Indonesia ends of the behemoth Hayel Saeeds’ HSA Group, which operates around the world as a multinational company and manages companies in different economic sectors. The HSA Group run by the Hael Saeed brothers is regarded as the most prominent family business in the Arab region.
Add to that being a Dangote; he became the plug for the Pertamina to secure monthly crude cargoes from the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Through his connection too, the Indonesian Minister of State Enterprises, Rini Soemarno, met with NNPC managers in Abuja in August.
In October, Indonesian business tycoon, Erick Thohir, who previously owned the Inter Milan football club of Italy, took over from Soemarno and also courted Mohammed.
Interestingly, the Indonesian ambassador to Nigeria, Harry Purwanto, is understood to have been largely kept out of the loop. The reason for which is not quite clear.
But Mohammed has lived up to billing and he has been instrumental in brokering a meeting between his Indonesian clients and the powerful new group managing director (GMD) of the NNPC, Mele Kyari; and the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari.
Mohammed first came into the news when he got married in Malaysia and had in his entourage Nigeria’s wealthiest men including Femi Otedola and Atedo Peterside,businessman and founder of Stanbic IBTC Plc among others.
His father is Sani, the immediate younger brother of the World’s Richest Black Man and is a successful businessman in his own right with investments in key sectors of the economy including manufacturing, agriculture and oil services and Vice President of the Dangote Group.
SOURCE: opt.news