Against the backdrop of submissions from some quarters that the equipment of Ajaokuta Steel Plant in Kogi State, Nigeria is outdated, an expert has said otherwise.
At the 2025 edition of the Nigerian National Steel Summit themed ‘Rebuilding and Consolidating Nigeria’s Steel Industry: Collaborative Action For Sustainable Growth and Global Competitiveness,’ in Abuja, a former President of the Nigerian Metallurgical Society (NMS), Prof Benjamin Adewuyi of the Federal University of Technology Akure, maintained that the Ajaokuta project should not be abandoned on the ground that its equipment is obsolete when updating instrumentation to modern day digital system is possible.
Adewuyi, a Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), warned that the advice to abandon the steel plant is to create room for importation and dominance of the steel market by foreign steel producers.
In the presentation titled, “Bridging the Gap in Nigeria’s Steel Industry: Human Capital, Technical Skills, and Institutional Readiness for Industrial Growth,” Prof. Adewuyi said the advice to abandon the steel plant is to create room for importation and dominance of the steel market by foreign steel producers.
“The idea of building another steel plant within the existing Ajaokuta Steel by any investor should be discouraged, and such investors should be shown a green field to start building the new plant and leave Ajaokuta Steel alone,” he stated.
According to the expert, all that needs to be done is bridging what he described as artificial gaps in steel sector development efforts created by policy inconsistency, underinvestment, and bureaucratic bottlenecks under successive governments.
“This is an industry that was once envisioned as the cornerstone of Nigeria’s industrial revolution; Ajaokuta Steel has remained dormant due to gaps created by policy inconsistency, underinvestment, and bureaucratic inertia.
“There is a need to close the gaps created in the past through inappropriate economic priorities and decisions on concession, unbundling, dismantling, and selling out as scraps, closing, etc.
“As an integrated steel plant, all the units linked together as a chain, if broken cannot function. Unbundling or separating any unit will render the entire steel plant useless,” he said.
He maintained that though the clamour for dismantling Ajaokuta on one hand may not be totally out of point, inviting investors to start another steel plant in addition based on completely new technology should be the subject for consideration.
According to him, “Ajaokuta Steel Company can commercialise some of the already commissioned and completed units after appropriate maintenance and digitalisation are carried out and, at the appropriate time the government can decide to privatise”.
He maintained that lack of adequate knowledge and its application is responsible for some major gaps.
“How can we contemplate abandoning a well-articulated and technologically sound project instead of planning
how to expand and diversify its steel production development programme?
“How could we be comfortable that Nigeria has become dumping ground for 12 to 14 million tons of steel and related products annually? We must bridge this gap and stop the major source of depleting much of the foreign exchange.
“Past government’s insensitiveness that rendered most of the installed 420 processing units in the Ajaokuta Steel Complex moribund must not
continue.
“The original builders designated the steel plant to produce up to 5.2 Mt of steel annually. The products include structural steels and can also accommodate the production of military hardware. This artificial gap can be removed with an initial plan to expand the production base of the engineering workshops (comprising the foundry, machine and forge shops, etc),” he said.
Speaking further, he said, “Should any investor be interested, let the federal government give another green field for their steel project and leave Ajaokuta alone.
Rather than creating more gaps of confusion, government efforts should be concentrated on the rehabilitation, reactivation, completion, commissioning, and continuous operations of the steel project as mapped out by the original builders of Ajaokuta Steel Company.
He maintained that the starting point of closing the gaps is to allow the designer of the project to carry out the technical auditing of the plant and present the cost estimates for the rehabilitation through to
the completion and operation of the project.
According to him, the gaps created in technology and operations in the various stages of development in the midstream and the downstream value chain had rendered the entire sector to be either moribund or functioning below expected capacity – what he said is an anomaly that should be corrected for maximum utilization of resources invested by the government in creating a separate ministry.
The professor also pointed out the technical skills gap as, according to him, in many industries, there is a lack of specialised training in metallurgy, fabrication, and metal production processes.
“Few institutions offer hands-on practical programmes tailored to steel manufacturing, the best that is available is probably foundry, and unfortunately, skilled professionals in this area had migrated abroad, leaving a vacuum in local expertise. Poor foundational education in science and engineering limits the pool of future steelworkers,” he said.
He commended the recent attempt by the government to revive the technical schools, saying it would go a long way to rectify the deficiency, recommending the curricula in universities and technical colleges to align with the practical demands
He also recommended that the National Steel Council works with the Ministry of Education, COREN, Nigerian Metallurgical Society and other stakeholders to develop a 21st Century Metallurgical Engineering curriculum for higher institutions, and collaborate with NYSC to ensure that all metallurgical engineering graduates are posted to serve in engineering firms.
