Ajaokuta Steel Company to reclaim 10,000 housing units from illegal occupants

Following the near completion of the multi-billion dollars Ajaokuta Steel Company Ltd., the company has vowed to reclaim its over 10,000 housing units from illegal occupants.
Sumaila Abdul-Akaba, the Sole Administrator of the Steel Plant, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Ajaokuta.
The sole administrator said the company had 23 estates, comprising over 10,000 housing units from which many were being illegally occupied.
Abdul-Akaba said that on assumption of office, the management of the company constituted a taskforce and engaged the services of an estate consultant to find out the status of people occupying the houses.
He said: “We have over 23 estates. When we came in, we got an estate consultant because most of the people living in our houses are not Ajaokuta staff.
“Some are retirees and some are external people. We set up the taskforce which has just submitted its report with the consultant.
“We have also written to the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development to seek an approval in terms of what we want to do and how we want to resolve those issues.”
The sole administrator said that upon getting the approval of the ministry, they would go ahead with the recommendations of the task force.
He said the taskforce was set up to ascertain those occupying the company facilities legally and illegally and to ensure that the genuine occupants pay for their utilities.
He said: “The legal occupants have to pay for electricity and water because there is no free lunch anywhere and even in Freetown.”
He said the strategy was to ensure that the company workers get value for the assets.
NAN reports that the Ajaokuta Steel Plant is sited on 24,000 hectares of land in Ajaokuta, Kogi, about 38 kilometres from Lokoja, the state capital.
The plant was conceived and steadily developed with the vision of erecting a Metallurgical Process Plant/Engineering Complex with other auxiliaries and facilities.
The company is meant to generate important upstream and downstream industrial and economic activities that are critical to the diversification of Nigeria’s economy to an industrial one.
The Plant dubbed “Bedrock of Nigeria’s Industrialisation’’ is also designed to produce iron and liquid steel from Iron Ore Mines at Itakpe, also in Kogi, about 52 kilometres from Ajaokuta.