Post by Danny Angbashim (@db_angbashim)

NIGERIA POLITICAL CLASS ATM

#3

THE AJAOKUTA STEEL COMPANY

Conceived in 1972 the actual construction of the massive Ajaokuta Steel Complex, a fully integrated steel behemoth sitting on 24,000 hectares, began in 1979 by the civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari. Simultaneously 3 inland steel rolling mills were set up in Oshogbo, Jos and Katsina to produce secondary steel products from local scraps and billets from the Ajaokuta and Delta steel companies.

The company was conceived to supply steel to the manufacturing, construction, defence, transportation and other sectors in Nigeria and possibly for exports.

In fact the Babangida administration had taken the construction to about 98% before the project ran into funding challenges and other surmountable, avoidable even, issues which suddenly halted the dream.

Today the Complex lies in ruins, with thousands of jobs lost, and Nigeria spending billions of dollars annually to import steel products and in the process help provide and sustain jobs for those other countries.

So far over $8 billion been wasted on the construction of the company; but this hasn't stopped our political leaders from turning it into a vehicle to fritter away more funds. Every successive administration has turned it into a veritable ATM through dubious initiatives like concessions, rehabilitation, revitalisation, foreign partnership etc of the Complex during which humongous funds are salted away while its state continues to worsen.

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