The Nigerian Steel Industry: Xraying A Criminal Neglect

Make no mistake about it steel is a veritable cornerstone and key diriver for the world’s economy

The industry employs more than two million people directly worldwide in addition to two million contractors, plus four million people in support industries like construction, transport and energy.

Steel is also known as the bedrock and core of the green economy, meaning that renewable energy sources like solar, wind and tidal, all depend on steel. The element touches every aspect human life and activity.

China is the world’s leading producer/exporter of steel, with a yearly average of 716 million tons. Japan, U.S., india, Russia and South Korea, follow in that order. South Africa, africa’s ranking producer of steel, with a yearly average of 6.0 million tons, is the world’s twentieth.

President Shehu Shagari’s second republic, had in its wisdom invested heavily in the steel sector, when the Delta Steel Company, Aladja Katsina Steel Rolling Mill, Katsina, Jos Steel Rolling Mill, Jos, Ajaokuta Steel Complex, Ajaokuta and Oshogbo Steel Rolling Mill, Osogbo, were commissioned with pomp, and why not.

Add to this, the National Iron Ore mining Company at Itakpe, Kogi State and the stage was set for an industrial revolution, never before seen in this part of the world.

Lamentably folks the so-called Nigerian factor, another name for the twin-evil of corruption and vested interest, was unleashed on the gold mine. Today, this same country inexorably blessed by the Godhead, is shamelessly importing steel products from a country she could have been rubbing shoulders with.

A staggering three billion dollars, is what we expend on this avoidable and needless importation. If this is interpreted to mean, bringing down a government, let it be with Caesar, who tried to be an honourable man. When we say, government is a continuum, we are simply inferring that succeeding administrations in a country, would build on laid foundations and never to uproot what had been planted. This act is not only willful, but wayward. Imagine a Nigeria that imports 17 million tons of steel and allied products, every calendar year, when she has the raw material in confounding quanta. Ajaokuta has gulped seven billion dollars, when a mere one billion dollars was required to complete it, before its criminal abandonment. The other four were supposedly privatized, with little or no effect. It’s worth saying also that Ajaokuta has not produced a sheet of steel  despite the billions of dollars expended on it.

Today, Nigeria dreams big, to a point of wanting to produce vehicles. This is never a bad thing, but you have to wake into consciousness to actualize your dream, beyond winning elections. Our sole dependence on receipts from oil sale would have made a much more economic sense, if rent-seekers and powerful interests blocs, would let go.

Let me share this with you – “In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing” – Theodore Roosevelt.

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