WorldStage Newsonline– But for the official announcement of dissolution of federal agencies and parastatals last Thursday, fear was rife of another setback back for the steel sector currently being primed for total redemption from perennial failure to function.
The Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill was conceived and started by the now late former President Shehu Shagari in 1979 but has never been completed for operation since then.
Before the dissolution announcement, there was already a crisis in the Ministry of Steel Development stirred by allegation of usurpation of power from the Chairman, House Committee on Steel Development, Honourable Zainab Gimba, against the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Prince Shuaibu Abubakar Audu.
Addressing a meeting with the minister and National Steel Council on Thursday, May 2, 2024, Gimba expressed regret that the minister unconsciously neglected the importance of the supposed symbiotic relationship between the parliament and his ministry in a democratic dispensation that currently operated.
She recalled her speech during the last retreat that the Committee only read the minister’s activities on the pages of newspapers ad electronic media, ruing that the minister’s error was happening at a time efforts were being made to resuscitate the Ajaokuta steel company by TPE and the proposed trip to Moscow in Russia for further discussion to secure funding to the tune of $2b to revive the entire plant.
Gimba criticized the minister’s action as not inclusive or well consulted and therefore a glaring demonstration that the minister and the committee were not on the same lane with each other on the tarmac of flying with the vision of President Bola Tinubu on taking steel development to the next crucial level of progress.
More worrisome, according to the steel House committee chairman, is the unfortunate and regrettable skeptic manner of the late dissolution of the National Steel Council long after a presidential order since last year, leading to administrative and financial infractions under the minister’s watch gone so bad.
Speaking further on Audu’s infractions, Gimba said: “It was so disturbing that months after the minister’s fact-finding committee submitted its report, nothing was done to get due clarification from the office of the Secretary to the Federation (SGF) until April 29, 2024.
Moving forward, it’s expedient to ring the bell of caution about the selection process of concessions of Ajaokuta Steel Company in order to escape the trap that befell the nation in the past, when we paid so much compensation to Global Steel.”
Hon. Gimba however urged the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, National Steel Council as well as her committee on steel development to engage in creative thinking, and that in all the challenges, they must learn to develop a deep well of collective strength in order to stabilize relations among themselves.
She also enjoined that they should try to display concern, vision and commitment as well as demonstrate true positive value as stakeholders.
“While we must continue to maintain our key interests in taking the steel industry to the next level of progress, who says we cannot fundamentally grab the front roles perpetually in changing the narratives that confront us,” she added in exuding spirit.
While efforts to get the side of minister on the allegation has so far not yielded any response, Prince Shuaibu Audu however stated at an occasion in Ilorin, Kwara State that under the renewed hope of President Tinubu, one of the president’s cardinal objectives is to grow the size of Nigeria’s GDP to over $1trillion and that part of what the country needed to do to achieve that was to focus on industrialization which he said had the capacity to create hundreds of thousands and even millions of jobs.
With the blanket dissolution of all agencies, Nigerians as well as key stakeholders hope the rancour between the minister and the House committee will now nip in the bud any ugly development capable of reversing and impacting negatively on achievements made so far in redeeming the steel sector.
President Tinubu had recently re-affirmed his administration dedication to diversifying the nation’s economy away from her heavy reliance on fossil fuel production and therefore asked that all hands must be on deck for steel development and that all actions towards revitalization or concession of Ajaokuta Steel plant must be inclusive and pragmatic, using a transparent due process mechanism.
