•A mirage soon to turn final reality? That’s the task before the Tinubu government

An odyssey of unrealised dreams? That is the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited (ASCL), its sorry tale so long it is a clear and painful saga: conceived in 1958, before Nigeria’s independence; started in 1979 (by President Shehu Shagari), 21 years after its conception; yet to be completed in 2023, 44 years after it was started!

Yes, Vice President Kashim Shettima, on a campaign jaunt in Kogi State, just announced it was 98% completed. But you don’t know if that should make you laugh or make you cry — and Wikipedia provides a clue: ASCL was already 84% completed by 1983, when President Shagari’s government was toppled; and the Second Republic (October 1, 1979-December 31, 1983) was buried under its rubble.

The military regimes that took power after pushed the completion level to 98% in 1994 — 11 years after 1983. Compare and contrast that to Shagari’s whirlwind 84% record in four years, to the junta regimes’ 14% addition in 11 years: a conclusive proof of the dysfunction of military governments, when it is critical infrastructure as ASCL?

Wikipedia broke down the ASCL 98% completion rate, by 1994, in practical terms: 40 of the 43 plants had been built. Between 1994 and now, have the three outstanding plants also been built?

The Ministry of Steel Development should provide a clear answer. Nigerians need to know how really close are we to ASCL’s final realisation, with its alluring promise of 500, 000 jobs.

The Federal Government had, in 1987, awarded the contract to build Nigeria’s first standard gauge railway, linking ASCL to the iron ore mines at the neighbouring Itakpe, but with the rail line connecting the Atlantic Ocean in Warri, Delta State, to ready ASCL for business, after roaring into life.

Over the years, however, the Warri-Itakpe rail track fell into disuse, with a section of it vandalised. But former President Muhammadu Buhari restored the track from 2016, as part of his government’s rail renaissance programme.

By November 2018, test runs on the redeemed track had begun. On September 29, 2020, the former president inaugurated the Warri-Itakpe-Ajaokuta line, and has been busy ever since, trucking passengers and cargo. This critical rail support is part of ASCL’s 98% completion rate.

Ironically, as dysfunctional as military governments are, Ajaokuta suffered its worst fate under three elected governments, starting with President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007), all through the ruling years of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) — no thanks to a debilitating law suit that literally froze the project. That legal freeze wasn’t sorted out until December 2022, by President Buhari.

The debacle started in 2005, when President Obasanjo, as part of his “reforms”, firmed out ASCL as concession to Global Steel Holding Limited (GSHL), an Indian firm. The terms included not only resuscitating the plant — which not a few not unfairly judged was moribund — but for the concessionaire to operate but later transfer, after the agreed number of years, on a Resuscitate-Operate-Transfer (ROT) basis.

Though the unions kicked against the deal, it all appeared in sync with the Obasanjo-era “lean” government, with its acute thirst for “foreign direct investment”. But it soon proved an epochal abandonment of duty, with how things panned out.

After GSHL was accused of alleged asset stripping, among sundry violation of the concession terms, President Umaru Yar’Adua terminated the deal. The government also claimed GSHL lacked the financial and technical clout with which it pitched for its ROT. To replace GSHL, the Yar’Adua government emplaced an interim management committee (IMC).

GSHL’s response with a 2008 suit, claiming compensation for US$ 5.258 billion, began a long, long night for ASCL, during which about everything was frozen. That lasted 14 years — until both parties agreed to a US$ 496 million settlement, after arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in London.

But despite the agreement, the repossession of the plant by the Nigerian government and the 98% completion claim, much harm had been done.

Again, Wikipedia gave a dire assessment: “Three-quarters of the complex have been abandoned, and only light mills have been put into operation for small-scale fabrications and the production of iron rods.”

Among the abandoned critical segments are the internal railway network and large-scale equipment factories and foundries, without which Ajaokuta cannot produce the steel flat sheets, which would help galvanise local heavy industries, with harvests of skills and factory floor jobs.

That tantalising prospect must have driven Vice President Shettima’s zestful remark that 500, 000 jobs could be coming from that corridor soon — and that is even discounting sundry other indirect jobs, since the Ajaokuta-Itakpe steel/iron ore corridor will soon assume the international status of a free trade zone.

The big question, however: how soon is soon?

The good news, despite the legal freeze: the light mills — for small-scale fabrications and iron rods — debuted in 2018.

But when will Ajaokuta finally roar into life as an integrated, socioeconomic-enabling plant? That is the critical task before President Bola Tinubu, his steel development minister and indeed, the entire economy coordination infrastructure and manpower.

During electioneering, the president promised a credit-powered economy, in which citizens need not fork out cash, each time they want to buy cars, furniture and sundry needs, so long as they have jobs. Besides, such credit would propel consumption — most of it locally produced — limit pressure on wages and salaries, improve access to mortgage and help productive firms decongest their choking warehouses.

For auto and steel-driven goods, Ajaokuta holds a critical thrust. Indeed, it is no hyperbole to hold that a humming ASCL captures the core of a new Nigerian economy, where the real sector belts out most of citizens’ needs, the Naira returns as undisputed king of the local market and the dollar is no more than a peripheral exchange unit at the fringe.

Besides, Ajaokuta holds the ace to mass credit in the future car mart. Such a huge market should trigger local car manufacturing and foreign car assembly plants. With ASCL as local steel backbone, Nigeria should save a lot from steel imports.

Between January and September 2022 alone, Nigeria spent N1.038 trillion to import steel and sundry iron products, according to the National Bureau of Statistics’ foreign trade numbers. A ready steel supply from ASCL should reduce such bills and further strengthen the Naira.

The not-so-good news though is that Nigeria appears still very far from the alluring threshold, that Ajaokuta’s “98%” completion claim would seem to suggest.

That is why President Tinubu should, with whatever funding infrastructure possible, complete ASCL as urgently as his government can manage. It’s good Shuaibu Audu, the steel development minister, just spoke of a steel development roadmap. He should crack into action without delay.

Ajaokuta is a long-in-coming legacy project that could well turn a radical socioeconomic game changer. The Tinubu government should grab it, with both hands, for its Renewed Hope agenda.

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