The Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited in Kogi State has entered into
partnership with a consortium of investors to reactivate and operate
completed units of the steel plant.
The Sole Administrator of the company, Joseph Isah, made the
announcement in Ajaokuta on Saturday when the executive members of the Kogi State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists paid a visit to the company.
Isah said that the project had attained 98 per cent completion,
advising Nigerians not to canvass for its sale “at scrap value”.
He said that some of the completed units of the steel plant could be
reactivated and operated commercially.
He said: “As an integrated steel plant with series of completed units, some of which can be operated commercially, we are currently going into partnerships with a number of investors to reactivate them.
“Such completed units include the engineering works, light section
mill, wire rod mill, thermal power plant and the Metallurgical
Training Centre, among others.”
He said that the company had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Messrs Reprome Nigeria Limited for sourcing of spares and technical assistance.
The administrator said that the company had also signed another MOU
with the Industrial Training Fund for training and manpower
development.
According to him, this is in line with the National Industrial Skill
Development Programme of the Federal Government to train 1,000
trainees in each state.
Isah, who described the Ajaokuta Steel Company as the “bedrock of
Nigeria’s industrialisation”, attributed the woes of the company to
Western conspiracy and indigenous collusion.
He said that some leaders in government were ignorant of the potential
of the company, urging journalists to give the steel company the
needed publicity.
Earlier, the Chairman of the NUJ in Kogi State, Malam Ali Atabor, said that people generally believed that the company had failed, but that the visit of the NUJ members had proved the contrary.
The chairman urged Nigerian leaders not to succumb to western
propaganda to stifle the country’s industrialisation, advising the
leaders to take the completion of the steel project seriously.
Atabor urged the management to revive the MTC for the training of manpower.
He commended the vision and focus of the company’s leadership to turn it around.
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