Why the western world are sabotaging Ajaokuta Steel Industry – Prof Timothy-Asobele

Professor Samuel Olajide Timothy-Asobele, is the Head, department of European Languages, University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos. A man of many parts, he is also an outstanding administrator and author of several books. He spoke with FEMI GANIYU and ISMAILA ADEKUNLE, on the travails of Ajaokuta Steel Complex, Kogi State; academics and other sundry national issues.

What is your assessment of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex, bearing in mind that the complex holds much potential for Nigeria’s development?

It is a subject that I know so well that will bring expected industrial revolution and economic take-off for Nigeria. On the fifth of January, 2010, I sent about fifty pages of a position paper on how Ajaokuta Steel Complex can support Nigeria and its economic take-off.

Then, I decided to send it to other media houses so that since it is the very fulcrum of our economic take off, I believed that the downstream activities of the Nigeria Steel Complex in Ajaokuta, will impact positively on the life our people in Nigeria, especially, the Kogi people, most especially, the Okun people of Kogi West Senatorial District, North Central Nigeria.

That is why I’m interested, because we have trained so many engineers, so many workers, economists, etc., but I keep on asking, what impacts have they made on the economy of Nigeria? Because, we have professors all over the places, we have professors of Metallurgy/ Material Sciences, we have Professors from Harvard University, California Institute of Technology, what are their impacts?

Have we been able to create even needles or switch boards; wristwatch, balance wheal, which we can generate by our economic activities at the Ajaokuta Steel Complex? That our professors, the PhD holders in sciences, in technology, they should realise that if they develop their own entrepreneurial scheme by adding values to our raw materials will take off economically.

Just as a plain bar of iron worth five American Dollars made in to repair of raw shoe is worth fifty dollars made into medical needles is worth five thousand dollars made in to balance fine switch wrist -watch might bring half a million dollar.

Our children must developed our numerous raw materials, which abound in our Agricultural field, we are gifted and talented use, for example, in the old Kabba Province, the people were able to turn corn into cornflakes, gbugburu, Ogi, Eko elewe, cornmeal, which added value to the local corn.

We expect our people to be inventors; to be able to add value to what we have in our own local materials; and that is why I have been talking about iron and steel development. It is the cornerstone of our industrial and our economic take-off.

At the inception of the defunct National Party of Nigeria’s (NPN) administration in 1979, and even right from former President’s Olusegun Obasanjo’s Military government in 1976, we heard that government had a good vision to develop Ajaokuta Steel industry by sending some of our young talents overseas; what is your view or thought about Nigeria’s technological breakthrough?

Well, we believed that if, for example, we revived the critical section to generate enough funds to service and finance the rolling means, these can generate important upstream and downstream industrial activities that are critical to the country economy in line with Vision 2020, foundry can proceed to manufacture various agricultural equipment, for refinery; auto parts, platform, pipes and bents, defense and armament parts, crushers, hammer, to create demand for steal and alloy components in automobile industry.

There is a huge market for alloy even in the cement factory, at Ewekoro, Ashaka, Obajana, Okpela, Calabar, Shagamu and Unkalagwu. The downturn in oil prices makes this alternative source of revenue imperative for us in this country.

Let us produce for export; by so doing, we will be facilitating technological growth, thereby adding value to our economy in a sustainable manner.

Ajaokuta foundry for example, has the capacity to produce 7000 tons of billet per annum. This will create jobs for our youth, reduce importation of cost products in the spirit of local contents; develop good rails and road network around Ajaokuta, Okene, Idah, Kaaba, Itakpe deposit side to link Obajana limestone deposit in Kabba-Bunu Local Government Area of Kogi state.

Vast forest lumbering activities are produced in commercial activities in Kogi State; our steel mill can produce rail track, wagon and coaches. Let the Chinese open up industrial estate in Nigeria.

What you have done now is to espouse the linkages between industry, Agricultural, mining, transportation sectors, etc. Do you think the Nigerian government has done enough to carry out these linkages with respect to steeling industry?

The linkages you are talking about, I thought about it, because to develop the agric. sector for rural development, is very important. Agric. equipment from Ajaokuta foundry is about 4.5billion; agricultural, rural development loan was taken from China, everything will come for development, the tractors and the rest, it is about agriculture to take off and to rescue what we are producing and be exporter of product of goods and services abroad.

We should develop the export sector, oil and gas, petroleum, because even now, with the platform in Brass LNG and Bonny LNG, we need the input of iron and steel for it to take off.

We must add the expansion of energy Infrastructure, I mean the former NEPA; we have the Shiroro Dam, Kainji Dam and several all other dams, if we expand those dams, we should be able produce kilowatts of energy.

The linkages we are talking about, there must be availability of raw materials, availability of water, availability of human resources, we have developed paper tiger human resources, the professor of engineering that are not professing anything.

It is high time that we don’t put emphasis on their certificates, but on their productivity to impact on the industrial take off of the country.

Prof, you must have visited Ajaokuta Steel industry, the building, the structures, perhaps some other steel industry in Oshogbo, Jos, in Warri and the rest of them; now, what is your assessment of the state of iron and steel industry in Nigeria?

Yes, in the year 2010, I visited Ajaokuta iron and steel company; in 2012, I visited the place again, and I have been there more than three times. I see the colossal waste that the company represents, but I believe that most steel technology operations from the white people, I don’t believe that the white people will transfer technology to us.

The Chinese used to steal from the United States government as, industrial spy; to come and steal the technological development of the American State; and we remember that even Japan took more than 150 years to achieve industrial revolution, which took about fifty years; they caught off with the US and they are masters of their products, I believed it high time we think of how the Japanese and ancients tigers were able to beat the West and produce more than the West.

We expect Nigeria’s economic recovery plan at the beginning of April, and the government should revisit the educational background of those who are going to implement the economic recovery system.

Ajaokuta has gone through many hands; Indorama recently; and the Minister of Mines and Solid Minerals, Dr. Kayode Fayemi said they are going to privatize the Ajaokuta Iron and Steel Complex. Do you think that will solve the current problems facing the Complex?
Well, our Minister, Kayode Fayemi was my student in my faculty. I was teaching him French and History, I didn’t know him then.

But I think, he is out of his mind, because, how do you privatize the core iron and steel industry that will make Nigeria send men to space, that would have a fleet of tractors; trailers made from iron and steels in Ajaokuta, and you want to give it to foreigners?

Anyway, he is an historian, he doesn’t know what he is doing. Ofcourse, Fayemi is not an economist. Because nobody will transfer knowledge to you.

In the late 1970s, Joseph Garba, the Minister at that time decided together with Obasanjo to send our young stars abroad to study science so that they can steal technology to come and develop the country, but, instead, they are running after paper qualifications and not the competency in performance that is expected of them.

President Muhammadu Buhari has just released his economic growth plans. What is your take on it?

If we are to judge the country by the number of conferences and seminars; the number of colloquia, congresses done, Nigeria will be number in the world. Nobody has implemented all these.

I think there is a committee to monitor the implementation of that fine program that is before us. We must look for people who are patriot.

For example, I sent a letter to the Minister of Mining and Solid Minerals, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, but up till now, he has not replied me; and I have sent more than fifty photocopies of Ajaokuta Steel to him; and one of the lecturers here, who was his classmate, has gone about it, but he (Fayemi) refused to look at the message.

Have you ever met with former President Obasanjo to rub minds on the steel sector and his role?

Obasanjo is my friend. He personally wrote me over issues. We talk and rub minds. He is a true Nigerian, he believes so much in this country. And that is why I like him.

But his second coming as a civilian President was not as good as his first coming as a Military Head of State.

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I don’t believe that the white people will transfer technology to us. The Chinese used to steal from the United States government as, industrial spy; to come and steal the technological development of the American State; and we remember that even Japan took more than 150 years to achieve industrial revolution, which took about fifty years; they caught off with the US and they are masters of their products, I believed it high time we think of how the Japanese and ancients tigers were able to beat the West and produce more than the West