POLITICS OF STEEL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA/JekwuOnovo

Nigeria dream of establishing a world class steel sector remains a mirage. The Ajaokuta Steel Company, located in Nigeria’s confluence state, Kogi, is unarguably Nigeria’s largest industrial project, envisioned to serve as the ‘bedrock of Nigeria’s industrialisation’.

The decision to kick-start the project could be traced to the year 1967 after a team from the defunct Soviet Union discovered large deposits of iron ore in Itakpe, Kogi state. In 1975, a contract was signed between the Nigerian government and a Soviet state-owned company, Tiajpromoxport (TPE), and in 1979, under the then executive government of Shehu Shagari, work on Ajaokuta Steel started officially. The project was closely situated in a location that makes it almost independent of imports as 80 percent of the raw materials needed are within the factory’s 60 kilometer radius.

Ajaokuta has the capacity to produce 10 million metric tons (MT) of steel per annum from its 43 different plants. This would have been a game changer for Nigeria to take the front seat among steel producers in the world.

However, the project has been mismanaged and remains incomplete 40 years later. Three-quarters of the complex have been abandoned, and only the light rolling mills have been put into operation for small-scale fabrication and the production of iron rods.