One of the achievements being bandied by supporters and admirers of former Governor Lucky Igbinedion was the construction of a Fertilizer Blending Plant in Auchi, Estako West local government area. The supporters were quick to criticize immediate past Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, for failing to revitalize the plant built and commissioned by Igbinedion for the purpose of jobs creation.
It was in 2003 that former President Olusegun Obasanjo commissioned the fertilizer plant but unknown to Obasanjo, bags of fertilizers displayed at the plant during the commissioning were purchased from the open market and rebagged on site. It was gathered that the plant was not working because one of the Chinese technical partners pulled out over an untidy contractual agreement and the Mainframe computer unit which controls all the operations of the plant was reportedly stolen.
Former Commissioner for Agriculture during Oshiomhole’s administration, Hon Abdul Oroh had this to say about the fertilizer plant, “If you look at the fertilizer company in Auchi, most of the equipment installed at the point of commissioning were all fraudulent because they were outdated and not useful and fertilizers were procured from somewhere and released as being products of the company.”
However, 17 years after, the Edo Fertilizer Blending Plant is set to begin commercial production under the Godwin Obaseki administration. The plant has been revived and it targeted to produce 55,000 metric tonnes of fertilizer annually.
The quest to revitalize the plant began in January when Governor Obaseki led the Director General of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, Mr. Uche Orji and the President Fertilizer Producers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Thomas Etu, to the plant site with a view to reviving it to meet the Federal Government target of creating 250,000 jobs from all the 38 fertilizer blending plants across the country.
Orji told newsmen that the visit to the fertilizer plant was part of the Presidential Initiative on Fertilizer (PIF) whose purpose was to ensure that farmers in the country buy fertilizer at N5,500 before the next planting season.
According to him, “Edo is one of the investors in the SWF. We are working on the PIF to import some components of fertilizer from Morocco and revive blending plants in the country.
“The net effect is to create jobs and for farmers to get fertilizer for as low as N5,500. With this type of facilities in the state, Edo state has been missing lots of opportunities with a factory like this.
“Once the governor and the investors have agreed, I don’t think it will take too long to get this plant running. Our objective as the governor has mentioned, is to put the raw materials into this plant and have it to start working.
“The president has presidential initiative for fertilizer, and the idea is instead of importing finished fertilizer, we bring in the component and blend it locally. If you do that, price will come down significantly and luckily, Edo is a state that has lots of raw materials needed.
“So this should be a natural advantage for Edo state to start which will employ alot of people. It will also at the same time, bring alot of advantages with it; bring down the prices of fertilizer for the farmers that is the idea of the presidential special programme,’’ he said.
On his part, President of Fertilizer Producers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Thomas Etuh, explained that the initiative was to encourage local blending of fertilizers with a view to create jobs and save foreign exchange. Thomas said Nigeria will be saving $300m in foreign exchange in 2017 and $120bn in terms of subsidy on fertilizer.
Last week, Governor Obaseki accompanied by his Deputy, Philip Shaibu, visited the fertilizer plant of ascertain the level of work done. He was shown round the facility by Mr Ayodele Ejaoye, the General Manager of the Technical Company managing the fertilizer plant.
Obaseki inspected the power plant, production line, storehouse, administrative building and the new line. He was assured that the plant was capable of producing seven tons of fertilizer per hour and prepared to be test run by mid-June while commercial production starts by June ending.
Addressing newsmen after the inspection, Governor Obaseki said the plant would employ about 120 direct and indirect workers when it became operational.
Obaseki disclosed that talks were on with the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), to draw a dedicated 33KVA line to the plant in addition to standby 500KVA generating set that has been refurbished at the plant.
“I am quite impressed with the progress of work here because if you compared the situation now to what we met about two and half months ago, when we came here first, you’d find that there is significant difference,” the governor said.
“We have been able to get the technical partners under the federal government fertilizer programme to start work here and they have made investment to revamp the plant. The equipment have been tested and manufacturers were brought to fix the faulty parts. They are also constructing a new line to meet up with the specification of the federal government fertilizer programme.”
