The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) is appalled that the country spends a whopping $3.3billion on the importation of steel products into the country. It said that this was even more appalling, because of the abundant presence in the country of the requisite raw materials, like iron ore and coal that could hasten the growth and development of the industry. The umbrella organisation for the country’s engineers is worried that the absence of a functional steel facility was hampering the growth of the manufacturing sector and has stalled the development of skill that could aid the sector.
Nigeria’s quest for steel technology dates back to the 1960s. The government of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, as far back as then, recognised the relevance of steel in any nation’s economic development and made efforts to bring the country, fresh from colonial rule, into the club of industrialised nations that the steel industry symbolised. But economic considerations were sacrificed on the altar of politics with the ill-advised decentralisation of the steel project in the country, for which Nigeria is paying the price until date. The first obstacle to the nation’s effort to acquire the technology was the refusal of western countries to aid steel development in Nigeria, because of the then pervasive imperialist thinking that being a developing country, Nigeria was not ripe for it. The civil war over, the involvement of the Soviet bloc countries, especially Russia, did not quite change the scenario. Today, even with the sinking of trillions of naira in Ajaokuta Steel Company, the Delta Steel Company at Aladja and the rolling mills in Katsina, Jos and Oshogbo, the picture has not changed much. The concession of the main plant at Ajaokuta has further taken the industry far off from realisation.
We point out that the country recently launched the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) and the National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDP). Both of them are laudable plans that, if well-co-ordinated, will put the country on the path of industrial growth and development. In our opinion, these two plans have very little chance of success without a vibrant local steel sector. The engineers’ assertion that without appropriate synergy between the (non-existent) steel industry and other relevant sectors, as well as coherent and articulated development goals not much can be achieved speaks volumes.
It is pertinent to note that China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and other Asian Tiger countries would not have been where they are today as industrial and technologically advanced countries, if they had depended on import substitution as we are doing. In our view, it is not too late to begin anew. It is in this context that the authorities ought to see the revelation by the Society of Engineers as a wakeup call and go beyond rhetoric and fanciful policy postulations to real actions that will take the nation where it ought to be.
If you want to capture the state of the nation state called Nigeria there is no venture that represents it so well than the steel industry in Nigeria. It oozes the mediocrity in governance, the corruption that cuts across all facet of leadership and the fallacy of our development potential. Wonder why the same people who have accounted for our underdevelopment are shouting hoax to GEJ when he has done far better than then though not good enough.