The President of Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has declared that passionate Nigerians could be about Ajaokuta Steel Complex the long-stalled project may never bounce back to life again.
The Daily Crucible reports that Ajaokuta steel rolling mills in Kogi State was conceived in 1978 to drive revolutionalising of Nigeria’s industrial sector and create jobs in thousands, if not millions. The plant was declared 98 per cent complete in 1984 during the administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari but it has not produced sheet of steel. Notwithstanding, it keeps gulping billions in public funds through maintenance, salaries, pensions and legal costs.
The expatriates – Russians – and Nigerians who were trained in the former USSR that helped install the facility have long lost hope of ever seeing the plant come alive. Some of them have died.
Last year, President Bola Tinubu approved a rejigging of the plant’s light steel section following discussions with India’s Jindal Steel Group.
Ajaokuta Steel Company received budgetary allocation in the 2025 budget for salaries but no steel is rolling out from the plant yet.
But speaking on Tuesday during an interview with newsmen, Dangote said that global technological advancements have overtaken the one that erected the project.
He noted that while no country could progress without a viable steel industry, Ajaokuta’s future remained bleak.
“The steel we are talking about, we will definitely look at the opportunities of doing that. There is no nation that you can build without a steel industry. And honestly, between us here, Ajaokuta will not work. We can keep deceiving ourselves. We can keep being passionate about this. It’s not possible,” the billionaire industrialist said.
Dangote however cautioned that Africa must guard against allowing itself to be a dumpsite for obsolete industrial projects and cheap imports that undermine local capacity.
