The Federal Government has finally inaugurated the Ajaokuta Presidential Project and Implementation Team, APPIT, to revamp the Ajaokuta Steel Plant located in Kogi State.
The 13-man team is to be chaired by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, while the Minister of State, Mines and Steel Development, Uchechukwu Ogah, will serve as the alternate chairman of the team.
The committee is expected to prepare and submit a periodic work plan along with quarterly progress reports on assignment activities, end-of-assignment report and develop concession contract terms.
Speaking during the inauguration, Mr Mustapha noted that revamping the plant presented a unique opportunity to make Nigeria the largest fully integrated steel producer in West Africa and accelerate its industrialisation, especially in steel-related industries.
“Today’s inauguration of the Ajaokuta Presidential Project and Implementation Team (APPIT) is, therefore, meant to kick-start the process of re-directing the activities of the steel plant with the aim of bringing the Steel Project back to life for the growth and economic development of our dear nation,” a statement by the Director of Information in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, OSGF, Willie Bassey, quoted the SGF as saying.
According to the statement, the need to set the ball rolling for the development of various sectors of the economy became more pressing as a result of the unpleasant realities bugging the global oil market.
“The Ajaokuta Steel plant has languished in economic unproductivity for about four decades and previous efforts at reviving it had proved abortive. This has resulted in avoidable massive foreign exchange losses at intolerable opportunity cost to the country.
“The pressing need to redress these avoidable challenges has necessitated this Presidential intervention at this time. This is further underscored by difficulties being witnessed with present challenges in the global oil industry,” Mr Mustapha added.
Recall that during the Russia-Africa Summit last year in Sochi, President Muhammadu Buhari had discussed the resuscitation of the Ajaokuta Steel Plant with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Subsequently, a bilateral agreement was signed for the project which would derive its major funding from the Afreximbank and the Russian Export Centre.
According to the agreement, the Federal Government had said the Russian government and Afreximbank would provide up to $1.46 billion to fund the resuscitation of the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited.
Background
Forty years later, Nigeria is again banking on a bilateral agreement with Russia to resuscitate the now derelict steel factory complex.
Shehu Sharagi and Leonid Brezhnev led Nigeria and Russia when the two countries first started to build the Ajaokuta steel rolling mill in 1979.
Nigeria’s rich deposits of iron ore, much of it in Kogi state, the region where Ajaokuta is located, makes steel a viable target for government’s revenue campaign, and also offers the scope to develop other industries.
The plant has a 68 kilometre road network, and is meant to accommodate 24 housing estates, a seaport and a 110mw power generation plant.
If operational, it could provide nearly a million jobs.
