Industry experts condemn government's decision to hand Ajaokuta over to British firm

STEEL experts have criticised the recent decision by the Nigerian federal government to engage a British firm in its attempt to revive the Ajaokuta Steel Company because it can no longer get hold of Russian experts due to the ongoing Ukraine war.

Ajaokuta mill was built by the Soviets in 1979 but has since fallen into a state of disrepair, with successive Nigerian governments failing to revive it. This current government had plans to bring Russian engineers back to get the facility up and running but the combination of the lockdown and the current war has made this impossible.

A Russian company called Tyazhprom Export started the Ajaokuta Steel Company back in 1978 and there had been plans to get engineers from Russia to get the facility up and running again. With the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war preventing this, minister of mines and steel development, Olamilekan Adegbite, said the federal government is going for a British partner

He explained that the arrangements with the Russian firm that was supposed to complete the revival of the company had failed because the contract was awarded to a company with vested interests in both the Russian and Ukrainian governments. However, the former president of the Nigerian Metallurgical Society (NMS), Professor Benjamin Adewuyi, said that the engagement of a British firm to revive the steel company is as good as burying the company forever.

Condemning the more, Professor Adewuyi said that every bit of work done on the steel company was handled solely by the Russian engineers and all core equipment used for the project was provided by the same Russian company. He added that if care was not taken, the Ajaokuta plant might be eventually cannibalised in the same way the National Iron Ore Mining Company (Nimoco) in Itakpe of Kogi state was cannibalised by the contractor it was then awarded to.

Professor Adewuyi said: “We know what happened at Nimoco, how it was cannibalised by the contractor that the project was awarded to. The contractor went away with valuable equipment belonging to the company.

“Handing over Ajaokuta steel company to a British firm is just like handing over our big asset to them to incur more problems on the company. A Russian company, the original builder of Ajaokuta Steel knows the nitty-gritty of the project and how to revive the steel company.

"Why engage a British firm? Did the Russian firm say it is not coming to revive Ajaokuta steel company again? An agreement is an agreement. Has Russia cancelled the agreement it signed with the Nigerian government in 2019 to take the audit report of the company and complete the steel plant?"

He added that the fact that some Nigerians had an axe to grind with the agreement should not be used as a pretext for the federal government to blame its decision on the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Professor Ocheri Cyril, the NMS publicity secretary, said engaging a British firm to revive the company might even compound the moribund state of the industry.

He added: “I was not surprised to hear that Ajaokuta Steel will not be completed as promised by the federal government. It is a pity that a gigantic investment such as Ajaokuta Steel Company that the foundation was laid in 1978 on 24,000 hectares has gone through several setbacks under past administrations."

Professor Cyril noted that the steel company had suffered under President Obasanjo’s administration when it was a concession to an Indian company known as Global Infrastructure Nigeria. He pointed out that the concession had generated lots of problems.