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Tag: steel

  • Fear as substandard steel products flood market

    Fear as substandard steel products flood market

    Reinforcement bars are critical to maintaining the integrity of concrete used in construction. According to experts, a compromise can lead to building collapse. Yet, some manufacturers have flooded the market with substandard iron and steel, putting lives and property at risk. The manufacturers are also defrauding the government in underpayment of taxes and levies. Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA reports.

    Manufacturers of substandard iron and steel products are on the prowl. This has raised fears of possible collapse of more buildings across the country.

    The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) raised the alarm that substandard had iron and steel products have flooded the market. The agency said it took painstaking monitoring and enforcement by its task force to discover that most manufacturers of the products are now cutting corners on the required standards.

    SON, through its immediate past Director-General, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, said steel products that were supposed to measure 16 millimetres (mm) in diameter were discovered to measure only 14mm. This, according to him, falls short of acceptable standards by 2mm with a significant impact on the overall strength. Those that were supposed to measure 12mm measured only 10mm in diameter, while those that should be 10mm were only eight mm.

    The diameter of the steel products, which standards have been compromised by local steel manufacturers, is not the only infraction that pushed SON into the panic mode. The agency also observed serious violations in the length of various units of steel products.

    “The length of a unit of steel bar is supposed to be around 12mm, but after our enforcement exercise, we discovered that each unit of product in the market had lengths that were short by as much as 2mm,” Odumodu said.

    The obviously worried former DG broke the news  at a press conference  in Lagos. He said apart from violation of standards in terms of physical properties like diameter and length, the manufacturers also failed to meet acceptable standards in the area of chemical properties such as carbon and manganese content. With regard to the products’ carbon content, which is an impurity, per unit product, the SON chief stated that most products in the market at the moment had in excess of 0.37 per cent. This, he said, violates the stipulated standards for iron and steel products coded as NIS 117 of 2004 and BS 4449 of 2005.

     

    Manufacturers short-change government

    Going by disclosures by the Standards monitoring/regulatory agency, the activities of the manufacturers of substandard iron and steel products have also left Federal and state governments holding the short end of the stick. The Nation learnt that the manufacturers totalling about 20 companies in the country are also defrauding and short-changing Federal and State Governments in terms of payment of adequate taxes and levies.

    Hear Odumodu: “The kind of feedback we got from our survey showed that most of them never had invoices. We have a situation where people pay N200 million for a consignment without an invoice. They just say pay into a certain account; there is no invoice; there is no Value Added Tax (VAT). It became also obvious that they are also short-changing the Federal Government of Nigeria because if there are no documents to show the cost of the product as against other applicable taxes, it means that the Federal Government is being short-changed.”

    For him, it was perhaps, the height of unpatriotic attitude. He recalled, for instance, that the action of the manufacturers came at a time the agency was working on getting government to introduce a backward integration policy in the sector similar to the one that turns the fortunes of the cement sector around, leading to almost 90 per cent of Nigeria’s cement requirements being met by local manufacturers.

    His words: “Our plan was how we could work with them to ensure that government comes up with a policy to support made- in-Nigeria steel products. The next phase for us was how to lobby so that government could bring up a policy like we had for cement and others, because at that point we already had almost 90 per cent of the Nigeria’s cement requirements being met by local manufacturers and that was actually where we were.”

    He, however, expressed regrets that towards the end of last year, SON’s monitoring started showing that there were challenges. “Apparently some of these challenges were based on the survival instincts on the part of the manufacturers, because we started observing that a number of issues were cropping up that showed that they were beginning to put in the market substandard steel products,” he alleged.

    It is easy to see why SON is agonising over the development. Sometime in 2012, the agency celebrated the sanitisation of the re-enforcement bar market. SON insisted at that time that manufacturers should ensure that they had relevant equipment for chemical and other kinds of tests including having unique identification marks for all their products in the market.

    According to the DG, the only challenge the agency had at that point was for the imported re-enforcement bars, which of course, it finally also brought on the same fold. “We also set up a task force to monitor them on monthly basis and things were looking up,” he added, pointing out that the first major alarm that things have started falling apart was around September 2015.

     

    More building collapse looms

    The preponderance of substandard steel products in the market has fuelled fears that more buildings may collapse across the country. “Most of the re-enforcement bars in the market today are substandard, and that is why we felt that it was important we alert Nigerians especially people within the building industry, construction, structural engineers and all those kind of people who are involved in this business,” Odumodu said.

    It was not a false alarm. The former SON chief recalled, for instance, in June 2014, a 5-storey building that was meant to be a school for children came down in Onitsha, the commercial city of Anambra State, southeast Nigeria because of the use of substandard building materials.

    The building, which was completed, collapsed before it was commissioned. It was meant to house about 400 children. Although no life was lost, he said “we would have actually had an accident that would have killed more children than a Boeing 747 coming down. So, that gives you an idea of how bad or how fatal the situation can become.”

    The Nation learnt that part of the problem in ensuring standards in the steel industry stems from inability to create batching within the industry. Odumodu explained further: “If manufacturers made a product in the morning and another one in the evening, they cannot differentiate between the first one and the second one, because every code on the product is the same. That is unlike the food and pharmaceutical sector, for instance, where every batch is coded differently.”

    This means that the regulatory agency relies on the batch manufacturing records within the factories. It also means that members of SON taskforce will have to go back to these factories to find out how many batches they have made, where they were sold to, and then see whether will be able to trace further.

    However, this process, which is no doubt cumbersome, according to Odumodu, “draws issues about products manufacturing and recall procedure because in a lot of countries there are clearly defined recall procedures.” Besides, the agency’s has less than 1, 400 people, which make monitoring and enforcement in the industry difficult.We are not closing down any company

     

    Remedial efforts in top gear

     Despite the lack of products manufacturing and recall procedure in the country and the challenge of limited staff, SON says it is determined to clean the Aegean stable. Consequently, it has taken a number of steps to avert the impending danger posed by substandard steel product.

    “We have decided on a number of actions to immediately reverse the situation. Effective from February 9, 2016, no sale of reinforcement bars can happen in Nigeria without verification scaling, which means that if a batch is normally supposed to weigh 40 tonnes, it must be weighed before it leaves the premises of the seller. If it is not weighed, those people who are dealers will become responsible for whatever violations that may have occurred,” Odumodu announced.

    He added that SON staff will continue to measure the calibration status of the weighing equipment that are used in the factories and any company that is found with the intention of cheating the consumer will be sealed for a minimum of 90 days no matter what the reasons are. He said once the scale does not comply with the calibration status as required by law, the culprit will be punished.

    With regard to carbon content, which actually affects the tensile strength, the DG said SON is now insisting that all furnaces that are not electric arc must be replaced within the next six months, because what manufacturers are currently using does not have the capacity to remove impurities. “So they must elevate their technology to the use of electric arc furnace or any other technology that is better,” he said.

    According to industry experts, most of the irons currently selling in Nigeria come from scraps and scraps are known to have a way of being contaminated. If a manufacturer is using equipment that does not have the capacity to remove contaminants then sooner or later there will be errors, which could be fatal.

    This is why SON is insisting that the electric arc furnace or any better technology must be effectively employed within the next six months. “If manufacturers require some assistance in ensuring that they are able to bring those equipments fast enough, we would assist”, SON volunteered.

    Also, all iron and steel products must now carry clearly stated identity marks. This was sequel to the agency’s discovery that some products in the market either did not have identity marks or some of the marks were blurred, which makes if difficult to say a particular product is from A, B, C manufacturer.

    “If your own mould, for any reason, has a challenge, stop manufacturing and correct it. We are also insisting that within six months, you must also state the diameter explicitly on the ribs of the irons besides carrying out chemical analysis on all batches and these records should be available for inspection of our compliance officers,” Odumodu said.

    Stating that the message is for manufacturers, dealers, and retailers who constitute the three major levels within the steel industry value chain, he warned that  anybody or company that fails to comply risked closure and prosecution.

  • ‘Why Fed Govt must repurchase iron, steel firms’

    How can Nigeria realise its dream of industrialisation? It is by repurchasing the iron and steel companies, privatised by  immediate past President of the Institute of Business Development (IBD), Mr. Ifeanyi Obibuzor, has said.

    He said repurchasing the  Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited (ASCL), Kogi State; Delta Steel Company (DSC), Ovwian-Aladja in Delta State, and National Iron Ore Mining Company at Itakpe, among others, remained the panacea for achieving employment and industrialisation drive.

    He spoke on the sideline of the induction/Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Institute in Lagos

    ASCL, Nigeria’s largest integrated steel plant expected to produce 1.3 million metric tons (MT) of liquid steel per annum, has been a subject of litigation between the Federal Government and Global Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (GNIL), an Indian firm, since 2008. This followed the revocation of the concession agreement that handed over the steel plant to GNIL.  DSC has also been acquired by Premium Steel & Mines, a company owned by Mr. Sunil Vaswami and other institutional investors from the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). The acquisition has also been a subject of intense controversy.

    However, he said repurchasing the facilities had become necessary in view of the fact that building new ones would be difficult considering Nigeria’s prevailing economic situation caused by the crisis in the international oil market where oil prices have dropped drastically. “We need to repurchase the steel companies we sold because if we think of building new ones, it may be impossible,” he insisted.

    While stressing the need to look inwards, Obibuzor said there is no way Nigeria could move forward as an industrialised nation without addressing the issue of engineering infrastructure, which, according to him, consists of the capabilities and physical plants required to enable a prolific machine and equipment design and production to take place in the country.

    “If we have engineering infrastructure, we can design and produce machineries that will produce other machines. That is when we can think of utilising the steels to make the bodies of cars and have spare parts. We need to look at long term planning as an institute and a nation and then access what we have done, the gaps and how to bridge them,” he said.

    Obibuzor pointed out that in developed economies, the steel sector is the highest employer of labour and it is treated as a strategic sector because of the positive multiplier effect it has on employment generation.

    Aside creating direct employment, he said repurchasing the steel companies and putting them into full and efficient use would create millions of indirect employment opportunities for Nigerians.

  • N100b investments in steel industries at risk

    Over N100bilion investments by private steel manufacturing companies in the country are at the risk of being eroded if urgent steps are not taken by the Federal Government to address challenges besetting the sector, experts have said.

    Raising the alarm on Monday in Lagos was the management staff of African Industries Group and owners of African Foundries Limited, the largest steel manufacturing company operating in the company.

    Giving the report of the nation’s steel sector, the Chief Operating Officer (Steel), African Industries Group, Mr Sanjay Kumar said there are over 30 private steel plants producing various steel products in the country with investments that  are over N100billion since inception, adding that the investments could be jeopardised if nothing meaningful was done to address the issues bedevilling the sector.

    He said: “Already, about four steel plants have completely shut down and more will follow soon because many are currently operating below 30% of production capacity. Most of these steel plants are now operating two weeks a month and are closed for the remaining two weeks of the month due to lack of demand. Cost of restarting each time is very high and adds to the cost burden of the ailing steel companies. Steel consumption is largely driven by government initiative on infrastructure projects.”

    The best way to rescue the steel sector from collapse, he said, “Is for the federal government to make a definite policy of patronising made in Nigeria steel products (iron rods) for all government projects and give specific directive to all their contractors to buy made in Nigeria iron 30% of production capacity.

    “There is complete neglect of the involvement of the players in the steel sector in the formulation of the Nigeria industrial policy. All over the world, due to importance of steel in the development of the economy, the views and opinions of the key players from steel industry are usually sought and obtained by the government in the formulation of economic policies as being done for the oil or financial sectors. Unfortunately in Nigeria, the steel sector has been left out all these years,” he regretted.

    Kumar, who disclosed that African Industries Group is the largest steel manufacturing group in Nigeria, added that the group has four steel manufacturing plants at Ogijo (Ogun State), Ikorodu (Lagos State) and Suleja (Niger State).

    “African Foundries (AFL), the flagship company of African Industries Group is one of the few steel companies  in Nigeria  producing  iron rods meeting British standard (BS 4449-2005 Grade B500B). It has capacity to produce 0.5 million tons of BS 4449-2005 Grade B500B Iron rods. AFL has international standard testing laboratory equipped to measure mechanical and chemical properties of Iron rods and automatically test its geometry done in European steel plants. AFL follows all management practices laid under IFC and World Bank guidelines.”

    The African Industries Group boss recalled that African Industries got involved in the steel manufacturing in their quest to meet a gap between demand and supply at the beginning of democratic dispensation in Nigeria in 1999.

    “At that point in time the government started with the rebuilding of infrastructure and there was a clarion call for direct foreign investment. There was confidence in the Federal Republic of Nigeria for foreign investors to invest because of the democratic ideals.  Furthermore, we wanted to be part of the foundation of the industrial policy of Nigeria knowing too well there would not be any concrete industrial revolution without Steel,” he stated.

    He however, urged the government to create a special power tariff for the steel industry and make available an intervention fund at lower interest costs to prevent the immediate collapse of this private steel industry where many are operating below 30percent capacity and overburdened with high interest costs, while waivers/concession may not stop completely for certain infrastructural development, the portion of iron rod importation in any waiver should be expunged.

    Also, the Director-General , Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dr. Joseph Odumudu, said most products, including steel products being manufactured in the country are of high qualityand can compete favourably with their counterparts in the global market.

    The SON boss, who was represented by Mr. Bede Obayi, Director, Inspectorate and Compliance, SON, canvassed patronage, saying that such is the only way to encourage local manufacturers.

    “For every products imported into the country, we are exporting jobs out of Nigeria.This is the age of diversification. It is very critical that we patronise made in Nigeria products,” he stressed.

    Also, Director-General, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Mr. Remi Ogunmefun, said the steel industry all over the world plays a strong role in development.

    “Europe, America, developed their industry and that has been the base of development. The steel industry in Nigeria is facing some challenges. One of the areas hurting is patronage. The issue is so simple we have to convince government and put pressure on them on the need to patronise Nigeria made products. Nigerian products are good. Our products can stand out anywhere in the world. This is the age of diversification. We have to create policies that will change the sorry situation,” he said.

     

  • Save our lives, Delta steel workers beg Buhari over 20 year entitlements

    Save our lives, Delta steel workers beg Buhari over 20 year entitlements

    Aggrieved employees of Delta Steel Company (DSC) have appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to come to their aid and prevail on the company to pay all entitlements owed them over the last 20 years.

    The workers’ appeal, which was contained in a statement issued by the spokesmen of the DSC Pressure Group; Amanyo David, Emmanuel Ikhalo and John Okari, demanded that the company be compelled to pay all dues and entitlements that should be paid to retrenched employees from 1995 to date.

    Narrating the ugly experiences that the employees of the company had been made to go through since the first retrenchment exercise in 1995, the group said those sacked had yet to be paid their entitlements, while the company has also failed to fulfil its contractual agreements with those whose appointments were terminated.

    The group particularly expressed sadness over the inhuman disposition of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), which intervened in the crisis in 2012, expressing sadness that AMCON only intervened in the company’s indebtedness to banks, while shunning the plight of the staff of the company.

    “Since the 1995 reorganisation/retrenchment exercise by the then management of DSC, under the ownership of the then FGN, it is sad to note that all the victims of this exercise are yet to be paid their commensurate dues, benefits, emoluments and so on, many of those involved in this exercise have died, awaiting payment of their dues.

    “Precisely, on the 18th of May, 2012, the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), on the order of the Federal Government, intervened with the intention of paying workers’ dues and entitlements, salary arrears, offset the bank loans and contractors’ debts.

  • Delta Steel community accuses Receiver/Manager of neglect

    Delta Steel community accuses Receiver/Manager of neglect

    • Aribisala: its all digression

    The host community to the Delta Steel Company (DSC) Plc has said neglect of developmental projects that cater for community welfare prompted the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to change Receiver/Manager for the ailing steel company.

    The Ovie of Udu Kingdom, His Royal Majesty, E.B. O. Delekpe, alleged that the DSC Technical High School and DSC Camp Extension Hospital were neglected during the time that Chief Ajibola A. Aribisala (SAN) was the Receiver/Manager to DSC. This, he alleged, prompted AMCON to appoint Dr. Joseph Nwobike (SAN) acting for Premium Steel and Mines, a company owned by top businessman Sunil Vaswani, as the new Receiver/Manager.

    But when contacted by The Nation, Chief Aribisala said allegations of neglect against him by the community leaders are digression from more serious issues going on.

    He said he was appointed the Receiver/ Manager to DSC to prudently manage its assets, pay its debts, and not to serve the community. “I am not appointed to manage the host community. That is digression. That is diversion. The issue here is that I was appointed the receiver/manager by AMCON in 2011. And I have been acting. We went to court, took over the assets. It has not been easy for me because the company was owned by Indians.

    “The Indians used their assets to borrow money from banks and could not pay back. The banks sold the loans to AMCON. That was how I was appointed. I have no business with the host community,” Aribisala said.

    Continuing, he said “It is the AMCON MD that he petitioned for gross abuse of office. All the attack is not against AMCON, but against Mustapha Chike-Obi. I am not attacking AMCON. I am working for AMCON and will keep working for AMCON,” he said.

    On the schools, he said: “The school is one of the assets I need to sell to pay the debts. I am supposed to protect the assets of the company prudently, in order to realize the money that is being owed.

    I promised to give the host community concession for admission, but they have to pay school fees because no body will give service free”.

    Chief Aribisala said the alleged discharge of his appointment as Receiver/Manager of DSC is null and void, since Delta Steel Company, is by law a Public Liability Company and not a Limited Company. He maintained that he is the only one vested with the power to realize the charged assets of the company in receivership.

    But HRM Delekpe listed a hike in school fees from N25,000 per term to N40,000 and poor state of the hospital  as some of the issues the community holds against Chief Aribisala.

    Also, High Chief Steve Sokoh said he supports current step taken by AMCON to get the DSC up and running and urged the corporation to ensure that the demands of the community on developmental projects are met at all times.

    Likewise, Chief Samuelson Odibo said now is the time to salvage the company, and bring it to the global standard that will not only benefit the immediate community, but the entire country. He complained that preferences are not given to children of indigenes in the school.

    “The Udu Traditional Council (UTC) received the news on the appointment of new Receiver/Manager for Delta Steel Company with joy, and opens a better chapter in the management of DSC,” he said.

    Also, Principal, DSC Technical High School, Mrs. Mary Rose Ojukwu called for timely payment of teachers’ salaries. There were also calls on DSC managers to improve the condition of the hospital.

  • Nigeria spends $3.3b on steel importation, says Fed Govt

    Nigeria spends $3.3b on steel importation, says Fed Govt

    Nigeria has about two million metric tonnes of iron ore reserve, yet it spends $3.3 billion annually importing steel and iron, the Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, has said.

    He said the country had the second largest iron ore deposit in Africa and the 12th largest in the world, but it may end up spending $15 billion every year to import steel.

    The minister spoke at the weekend in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, at the inauguration of the Cold Roll Mill Project of Kamwire Industries Ltd.

    He said President Goodluck Jonathan “has set up a committee on how we can ensure that our industries, especially in the real sector, have access to affordable finance and the Bank of Industry will play a major role.”

    His words: “We spend $3.3billion every year importing these items. In the next decade, because of the way we are growing, $3.3billion will become $15billion.

    “Today, we have about a minimum of $14billion committed to the petrochemical sector, where its spread, as I have just described to you, hopefully will be gained by 2017 or 2018, when we will be self- sufficient and we will not import petroleum products.

    “Any country, which relies on exporting raw materials without having a strong industrial and related service sector will remain poor. We have made a mistake for decades thinking we are a rich nation, exporting crude, thinking we have money. But we do not have money. I am your former Finance Minister, so I know. We may have that competitive advantage, but what makes us different is what you do with that competitive advantage.

    “We are working on infrastructure and power already, with a lot of commitments going into the power sector. We are working on it and we will get there. It takes three years or thereabouts from where you start.”

  • ‘Nigeria must develop its steel industry’

    The National Association of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Students (NAMMES), University of Nigeria, Nsukka, has organised a public lecture on challenges of the steel sector.

    The event, with the theme: “The practice of metallurgical and materials engineering: effects on Nigeria’s industrialisation bid” was held at the new Engineering Lecture Theatre.

    It was attended, among others, by President of the Nigeria Metallurgical Society (NMS) Prof John Ade Ajayi and Director of Scientific Equipment Development Institute, Enugu (SEDI) Prof Christian Nwajagu.

    In his lecture titled: “Sustainable iron and steel production in Nigeria: the techno-economic backbone of the national transformation agenda”, Prof. Ajayi said though not all G-8 countries produce oil like Nigeria, they are top iron and steel producers.

    “The developing economics such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea and Taiwan have all embraced this sector as a strategic weapon to bolster the fortunes of their economies,” he stated.

    He described the iron and steel industries of any nation as a core industry that could produce a spectrum of products for consumers, adding that the sector had the potential to become one of the highest employers of labour in the country.

    Lamenting the poor state of the sector, he warned: “With confirmed mass importation of iron and steel products in Nigeria instead of producing our own, the following are bound to happen: more building will collapse, more graduates will be unemployed, more brain drain will take place; and MDGs vision 20:20 will remain a mirage and the transformation agenda of the federal government will be like Alice in the wonder land,” he said.

    The second lecturer, Prof Christian Nwajagu, emphasised the need to revive the metallurgical and materials sector to achieve technological development.

    Prof Nwajagu, who was represented by the head of department, Machine Building section, Mr C.N. Ifediegwu, said the development gap in the country could be filled by the development of the metallurgical sector.

    In his address, President of the group, Kinsley Amatanweze, 500-Level, said the summit was held to contribute to the industrialisation efforts of the nation, adding that the steel sector must be revamped to drive national development.

    Highlights of the event included the presentation of awards to the lecturers.  Other awardees were the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Enugu State, Engr Godwin Madueke; Managing Director of Funds Associates Limited, Prince Matthew Agu; Chairman of Simplicity Industries limited, Godwin Jioke and former Chairman of Post-primary School Management Board, Enugu State, Prince Alex Akpa.

  • ‘De-regulate steel production in Nigeria’

    An expert in Metallurgical Engineering, Mr. Daniel Obikwelu, has said Nigeria will experience rash development if she de-regulates steel production and all materials and metallurgical industries, including aluminum smelting, glass and cement industries.

    This, he said, would redeem Nigeria from dying industrially, even as it would boost the country’s industrial life.

    Obikwelu, a professor of Metallurgical Engineering and former Head and founder of the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Nigeria Nsukka, spoke at the 79th Inaugural Lecture of the University in Nsukka.

    Presenting his lecture titled, “Metallic Materials: Challenges in the 21st Century Nigeria and Didactic Lessons from the 18th Century Industrial Revolution”, he said that steel is strategic to the country’s socio-economic and industrial development. As such, all efforts to replace imported consumables with locally available materials for use in the Nigerian steel industry would help in making steel production a feasible project in Nigeria, adding it will create employment for the youth.

    Steel production, according to him, is a serious business and the government and people should be involved in the development, adding that no opinion of the World Bank and/or International Monetary Fund would be allowed to derail the country in her survival efforts and policies.

    Obikwelu urged the government to empower entrepreneurs to establish mini-rolling, billets mills/medium electric arc-furnaces, ferroalloy production industry, refractory production industry, beneficiation plants of low capacity, lime plant, foundry shops and mini-iron ore reduction plants, among other small units. These units, according to him, would preferably be located at regions where there are iron ore deposits and where iron smelting was practised early in history.

    He argued that closing the blacksmith’s shops is not the better way to develop skills envisaged for industrial revolution in Nigeria. He said the best way to achieve industrial revolution in the country is by repositioning the mindset of Nigerians through education and radical policy measures by government to absorb the local blacksmiths, encourage, control and equip them.

    If the government cannot run the steel industries, he suggested that other people or group of professionals should be allowed to run the industries for the government on some conditions. This, he said is because, without steel, Nigeria cannot develop.

    He noted that importing almost everything from other countries places the country at acute disadvantage in all aspects of life, thus leaving the country in a downright poor living situation.

    Obikwelu regretted that there is no effective defence industry in Nigeria for the manufacture of such simple combatant weapons like rifle, grenades and land missiles for the defence industrial sub-sector.

    According to him, Nigeria has become a dumping ground for arms, especially pistols and automatic hand weapons used or manufactured elsewhere, making the country vulnerable to foreign attack.

    Colonial masters stopped ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgical practices which were widespread in many cultural groups in Nigeria. Obikwelu said if these practices were not stopped by the Whiteman early in history, Nigeria and other African countries would not have missed this important industrial revolution phase, and would have been in the same position industrially with Britain, Europe and America.

    “Awka people used a type of furnace in the form of anthill to produce pig iron which they forged to domestic implements like knives, hoes and machetes for farm work. In the Nok, Igboukwu and Benin cultures of the 9th Century, there were non-ferrous metallurgical practices with bronze, brass and tin ore. These people had used iron and its furnace in one form or the other to improve their standard of living,” he said.

    Obikwelu condemned the cut-and-paste or turnkey approaches adopted by the government; where some technologies from countries such as Russia, India and Germany were cut and pasted in Nigeria as if Nigeria was a piece of blank paper. These are the cases with Ajaokuta Steel Company, Itakpe Iron Ore Company and Delta Steel Company. According to him, these cut-and-paste approaches were counter-productive for the development of Nigeria.

    He praised the government for having successfully and wisely recovered Ajaokuta Steel Complex from the Global Steel Holdings/Infrastructural Nigeria Limited (an Indian-based company). He suggested, as a short-term measure, that government should make money available to accomplish the following for a final outright selling of the steel industries to the prospective entrepreneurial persons or consortia.

    These measures include inaugurating Billet Mill, Light Section and Structural Mill, Thermal Power Plant Forge and Fabrication, Mechanical Repair Shop, Rubberising and Refractories and Lime Plants which have been 100 per cent completed; inaugurating all completed units namely, the Thermal Power Plant, Power Plant Repair Shop, Refractories and Lime Plant Production Plants, Foundry Shop and Mechanical Repair Shop and selling them outright; repairing Itakpe Iron Ore Company and selling it; selling all the seven units at the Delta Steel Company: the Pellet Plant, Steel Melt Shop, Lime Plant, the Foundry Shop, Central Mechanical Maintenance Shop and Auxiliary Plants.

    As Nigeria has missed the industrial revolution phase in her development, Obikwelu said the government should go back to the drawing board, taking a cue from Japan which also missed the industrial revolution phase sometime by using the veritable human resources in the universities, research institutes, existing highly skilled blacksmiths in the existing blacksmith’s shops all over the country to develop the indigenous technologies.

  • Ajaokuta, steel, NIMC get sole administrator

    President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the appointment of Isa Joseph Onobere as the Sole Administrator for Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited.

    Onobere, a metallurgical engineer, was also a top management staff of the company. He hails from Kogi State.

    Also, Abubakar Yaro Ibrahim was appointed the Sole Administrator for the National Iron Mining Company, Itakpe also in Kogi State.

    Ibrahim, a Mining Engineer, hails from Taraba State.

    Their appointments are with immediate effect.

    Minister of Mines and Steel Developmet, Musa Mohammed Sada announced the appointments yesterday.

    The Minister noted that the two sole administrators were appointed on the basis of their experiences and professionalism in the

    minerals and metals sector, that they should be able to bring about the expected turn around in the two facilities.

    The handing and taking over ceremonies between the new Sole Administrators and the former Interim Management Committee on the two companies are expected to be completed within one week.

    Arc. Sada explained that what informed Federal Government’s decision on the appointment of the new sole administrators for the two companies was to inject new ideas into the two facilities to make them operational in line with the transformation agenda on service delivery.