In a video shared on the TVC X handle on Tuesday, Aliko Dangote, the founder of the Dangote Group, stated his belief that the Ajaokuta steel company “will never work.”
He emphasized the importance of a thriving steel industry for national development but believes Ajaokuta’s challenges make its success “unlikely.”
He compared the effort to revive the steel company to “outdated technology with modern advancements,” saying, “There is no nation that you can build without a steel industry and honestly within us here, Ajaokuta will not work. We can keep deceiving ourselves and keep being passionate about it, but it’s not possible.”
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Mr. Dangote offered an analogy, stating, “It like you now, if you remember those vehicles we used to produce from Volkswagen (Igala) if you bring Igala now, would you now compare it to the current Kia. No, things have changed.”
He stressed the need for adaptation, adding, “Things have changed and all of us have to keep changing or you will become archaic. You have to change, now, when you carry something like Ajaokuta is like you going to the grave yard to bring a dead person or you go to the hospital to bring somebody who is on the dying bed to come and run 100 metres. It’s totally impossible.”
Ajaokuta steel company was built between 1979 and the mid-1990s but was never completed or operated optimally, remaining “moribund for over two decades.”
In September 2022, the Nigerian government paid $496 million to settle a claim from an Indian firm after a previous concession deal was revoked in 2008.
Despite these issues, the article notes that in December 2022, the government stated that 11 companies had shown interest in taking over the company.
Shuaibu Audu, the Minister of Steel Development, had also promised to revive the company upon assuming office in August 2023, and in September of last year, the government signed an agreement with a Russian Consortium Company for the plant’s rehabilitation and completion.
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