Whoever gets sworn in as the President of Nigeria on May 29, 2023, must see to the speedy completion of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex Limited, ASCL, as one of our topmost, urgent national priorities. This gargantuan project has been described as a symbol of Nigeria’s inability to handle really big things; a symbol of irredeemable system failures.

The project was conceived 65 years ago in 1958 but it was not until 22 years later in 1980 that President Shehu Shagari laid the foundation for its take-off. Also established along with it were four Steel Rolling Mills at Jos, Plateau State; Oshogbo, Osun State; Katsina, Katsina State and Aladja in Delta State.

Phase one of the project was designed to produce 1.3 million tonnes of liquid steel yearly with the capacity to upgrade to 5.2 million tonnes in its third phase, churning out different types and grades of steel products.The ASCL is a massive complex composed of 43 different plants. By 1994, Ajaokuta was reported to have been 98 per cent completed. But for reasons of the infamous “Nigerian factor”, this dream project has only guzzled trillions of naira with little to show for it.

President Olusegun Obasanjo’s elected government strove to revive the project under the private/public partnership arrangement with SOLGAS Energy of USA, but the move failed. Obasanjo also entered a concession agreement with Global Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd, GINL, owned by Indians to operate the ASCL and the Nigerian Iron Ore Mining Company, NIOMCO, at Itakpe, Kogi State; but this also collapsed. The company was accused of asset-stripping our supposed hope for rapid industrialisation. Efforts by the Buhari regime to retrieve the two companies from GINL only incurred the nation another $496 million in judgement debt.

Unfortunately, after seven years of grappling to actualise the project, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, recently announced that the next regime which will be inaugurated in less than two months will have to complete the job.

Adegbite blamed the failure of government to fulfill earlier assurances to complete the project on several force majeures, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

The next regime must summon the political will from Day One, conduct comprehensive technical audits, look for credible technical partners, join them with qualified and patriotic Nigerians of integrity to do the needed work, and source the required funds to push this project across the finish line as early as possible.

A situation where two epoch-making heavy industries – the Dangote Refinery and Ajaokuta Steel – come on stream and run seamlessly will put Nigeria on the rise again. The potentials of these two industries to impact the unemployment situation and rapid economic development are better experienced than imagined.

Nigeria must be brought into the comity of steel production countries once and for all.

•The Ajaokuta Steel Complex Limited