SECOND OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BOLA AHMED TINUBU, GCFR
Mr President, Sir.
It Is Time to Make a Final Decision on Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and NIOMCO
By Dan D. Kunle
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Your Excellency,
Good afternoon sir
Nearly half a century ago, Nigeria embarked on one of the boldest industrial projects ever conceived on the African continent.
The Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited was never intended to be just another government enterprise.
It was designed to become the backbone of Nigeria’s industrial economy, the foundation upon which railways, bridges, refineries, power stations, automobiles, heavy machinery, defence equipment, construction materials, oil and gas infrastructure and thousands of manufacturing businesses would depend.
It represented more than iron and steel.
It represented national ambition.
It represented economic independence.
It represented Nigeria’s determination to build an industrial economy capable of competing with the rest of the world.
Few national projects have carried greater expectations.
Unfortunately, few have produced greater disappointment than the Aluminium Smelting Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) in Akwa Ibom State, the Delta Steel Company in Aladja, NAFCON in Port Harcourt, and the NNPC refineries.
Today, after forty-seven years, Ajaokuta no longer represents Nigeria’s industrial future.
These failed projects represent one of the longest-running failures of public-sector industrial policy anywhere in Africa.
Mr President, sir, this letter is not another appeal to revive Ajaokuta and NIOMCO.
Nigeria has listened to that promise since 1979.
From 1979 to 1983 the largest contract awarding centers in Africa was Ajaokuta and Abuja Federal Capital Territory development. Even though Abuja as the new capital of Nigeria is today a reality but we are yet to evaluate the economic value or otherwise to Nigerians but Ajaokuta has definitely not added any socioeconomic development value to our country.
This is an appeal to do something far more relevant and decisive on Ajaokuta and NIOMCO.
Bring forty-seven years of uncertainty to a decisive end.
Where is the iron and steel?
NIOMCO in Itakpe, 65 KM away from Ajaokuta steel complex with a connecting standard gauge railway infrastructure to evacuate beneficiated iron ore as feedstock to Ajaokuta and probably Alaja steel complex in Delta state.
Iron ore, feedstock have never been fully produced and delivered to Ajaokuta steel complex till date nor Alaja steel complex in Delta state.
The Ajaokuta steel company therefore has not been able to blast its uncompleted furnace. It has never ever produced liquid steel, rather it has produced more speeches, promises, hopes and visitations.
The Ajaokuta steel complex has never been able to agglomerate all the raw materials from limestone to manganese to cooking coal to ball clay to acid and ETC for steel production.
The four rolling mills within the Ajaokuta steel complex were partially completed and operated at great loss and they have remained ever stranded.
Memoranda after memoranda, technical committees have all failed to produce steel from the complex
For almost five decades, Nigerians have been told that Ajaokuta is almost ready.
Almost completed.
Almost operational.
Almost revived.
Almost producing.
Almost attracting investors.
Almost becoming Africa’s industrial giant.
Yet after all these years, Nigeria still cannot point to sustained commercial steel production from Ajaokuta.
Instead, successive administrations have celebrated meetings instead of manufacturing, announcements instead of output, negotiations instead of production and promises instead of performance.
No private company would survive under such circumstances.
No shareholder would continue financing an enterprise whose principal product remained expectation rather than production.
The government should not apply a lower standard simply because the enterprise belongs to the state but this seems to be the same characteristic across all federal governments owned enterprises in Nigeria. Thus the justification for privatization and divestment.
The question before the federal government of Nigeria is therefore remarkably simple – Where is the iron and steel?
Until that question is honestly answered, every discussion about Ajaokuta risks becoming another exercise in postponement.
Dreams abandoned
The greatest tragedy of Ajaokuta and NIOMCO is not the abandoned plants. It is the abandoned generation.
When construction began, Nigeria identified many of its brightest young engineers and technical specialists and sent them abroad for advanced training in methurgy and steel making – in countries including the former Soviet Union and India.
Those young men and women returned home believing they would help build one of Africa’s largest integrated steel industries.
They prepared themselves for careers that would shape Nigeria’s industrial future. That future never arrived.
Many of those pioneers have since passed away.
Others are now elderly.
Many retired without ever practising the profession for which they were specially trained.
Some spent entire careers waiting for a project that never truly came alive. Their story is rarely told. What gratuity and pension did they earn compared to their peers that joined NNPC and CBN.
Mr President, I think we need to revisit gratuities and pensions to all these great Nigerians that their talents were wasted in such federal government home projects across Nigeria for fairness and equity.
Nigeria did not merely waste billions of naira.
It wasted talent.
It wasted knowledge.
It wasted experience.
It wasted an entire generation of industrial professionals whose skills should have transformed our industrial landscape.
No financial audit can fully measure this colossal loss.
Has failure become normal in Nigeria?
Mr President, sir, incomplete construction and abandoned federal government projects across Nigeria remain one of the greatest problems and embarrassment. It is because such failures have gradually become an acceptable norm.
Every administration inherits the projects.
Aluminum Smelters Company in Akwa Ibom completed but non operational over dispute of ownership till date.
The Nabilla hydro project, the Brass and OK LNG, the railway projects and government owned refineries across Nigeria.
Every administration allocates fresh public funds but never enough to make meaningful progress.
Every administration announces another revival programme.
Every administration searches for another foreign technical partner.
Every administration assures Nigerians that steel production is finally within reach.
Then government changes.
The cycle begins again.
The project moves from one administration to another, not as a functioning industrial enterprise, but as a political inheritance no government wishes to resolve permanently.
Forty-seven years later, Ajaokuta Steel has become something it was never designed to be except if my generation were deceived by our forefathers.
It has become a permanent government programme for preserving hope without production.
That is not industrial policy.
It is an institutionalised indecision and failure.
The wrong debate
For decades, Nigeria has asked the wrong question.
The debate has always been: “How do we revive Ajaokuta?”
That is no longer the question that should confront your administration, sir.
The proper question is far more fundamental.
Should Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and NIOMCO continue to exist in its present form?
Everything I have seen over the years leads me to one unavoidable conclusion.
In 1995 I personally organized a management workshop for the top leaders of Ajaokuta Steel company on how to reengineer the steel complex and optimize all the units that were partially completed but that exercise yielded no tangible results.
The answer is therefore NO.
This is not because Nigeria no longer requires iron and steel.
Nor is it because industrialisation has become less important.
On the contrary, Nigeria needs industrialisation today more than at any time in its history. China and India have taken the global lead in iron, steel and aluminum production.
But industrialisation should never become hostage to one corporate structure that has repeatedly failed to justify its continued existence.
The objectives were never to preserve Ajaokuta and NIOMCO
The objectives were to produce iron and steel in Nigeria.
Those are not the same thing.
Ajaokuta and NIOMCO were meant to be vehicles. They were never to become just a destination for government dignitaries to visit and make promises.
The sunk-cost trap
One argument is repeatedly advanced whenever fundamental reform is proposed.
Nigeria has already invested too much to stop.
With respect, that is not an economic argument.
It is an emotional one. Ajaokuta and NIOMCO have gulped in some estimates over $6billion. The last of such out of pocket expenses was the $490 million paid to the lucky failed concessionaire global steel infrastructure from its arbitration award against FGN.
One of the first principles taught in economics is that previous expenditure should never determine future investment decisions.
Money already spent cannot be recovered simply because additional money is committed.
Businesses that continue financing failed ventures solely because they have already invested heavily eventually destroy even greater value.
Governments should not behave differently.
The billions already spent on Ajaokuta are gone.
No additional allocation can recover them.
No fresh rehabilitation programme can erase nearly five decades of lost opportunities.
Indeed, the Federal Government continues to appropriate substantial public funds annually for personnel and recurrent expenditure at a company that has yet to produce meaningful commercial iron and steel.
The same case with all the government owned crude oil refineries under NNPC.
The question before your administration Mr President, is therefore not how much Nigeria has already spent.
The question is whether Nigeria should continue spending public money on a structure that has consistently failed to achieve the purpose for which it was established.
Leadership sometimes requires the courage to stop investing in yesterday’s assumptions.
The real cost
The cost of Ajaokuta and NIOMCO extends far beyond the figures contained in government budgets and CBN records
It is measured in opportunities that never materialised.
Every Naira committed to preserving an idle enterprise is a Naira unavailable for power generation, transport infrastructure, education, healthcare, ports, security, safety, research, digital technology and modern industrial parks capable of attracting genuine private investment.
The surrounding communities also tell a story of expectations that were never fulfilled.
Infrastructure developed to support a thriving industrial ecosystem has steadily fallen into underutilisation.
The once-promising industrial corridor has become a reminder of what might have been.
Express highways built to serve heavy industrial activity around Okene to Ajaokuta no longer carry the level of commercial traffic originally envisaged.
Facilities developed in anticipation of rapid industrial growth remain shadows of their intended purpose. An example is the airstrip in Adogo near Ajaokuta Steel Complex.
The project did not merely fail to produce steel.
It failed to produce the wider industrial ecosystem upon which its existence was justified.
That is the true cost of prolonged indecision and faulty political promises.
And that is why another cycle of promises cannot be allowed to replace a final decision.
Break it up!
Mr President, sir.
The time has come to confront the one question successive administrations have deliberately avoided. Again you have to bell the cat.
You did it for fuel subsidy removal, exchange rate liberalization, you have also done it for tax reform that I had earlier advocated for in my organized National workshop on Tax Reform 2002 in Abuja Sheraton during which your administration as governor in Lagos state sent the largest contingent.
Should Ajaokuta Steel Company and NIOMCO continue to exist in its present form?
After forty-seven years of studying the projects, following its history, observing successive policy reversals and witnessing repeated but unsuccessful attempts at revival, I have reached one inescapable conclusion.
It should not.
This is not a call to abandon the Nigeria iron, aluminum and steel ambition.
It is a call to abandon a corporate structure that has outlived its commercial usefulness and the realities of our time.
There comes a point in the life of every commercial enterprise when management must stop asking how to rescue yesterday’s business model and begin asking how to preserve tomorrow’s value.
That moment has arrived for Ajaokuta and NIOMCO and by extension ALSCON.
The mistake successive governments have made is to assume that preserving Ajaokuta Steel Company and NIOMCO is the same thing as preserving Nigeria’s industrial future. It is not.
Ajaokuta Steel Company and NIOMCO have become an obstacle to the very industrialisation it was created to deliver.
Every year spent trying to preserve an unworkable structure is another year lost in building the manufacturing economy Nigeria urgently needs.
Leadership sometimes requires the courage to admit that a structure has reached the end of its useful life cycle.
That is not failure, it is an acceptance of reality and that is responsible governance.
End the illusions
Mr President, one of the greatest disservices we have done to ourselves as a nation is to keep pretending that Ajaokuta and NIOMCO are always one agreement away from success.
Every few years Nigerians are told that another investor has shown interest.
Another technical partner has arrived.
Another foreign government is willing to participate.
Another committee has completed its work.
Another Memorandum of Understanding has been signed.
Another rehabilitation programme is about to begin.
Yet nothing changes.
Iron, steel and aluminum are still not produced.
The truth is uncomfortable, but it must now be stated HONESTLY.
No serious investor is waiting anywhere in the world to inject billions of dollars into Ajaokuta and NIOMCO in their present status.
If such an investor truly existed, that investment would have materialised long ago.
Instead, Nigeria has spent decades organising what has become a recurring beauty parade of prospective investors, each making promises, each raising expectations and each eventually disappearing without changing the underlying reality.
Mr President, industrial policy cannot continue to depend on hopes.
It must now depend on commercial realities.
All critical supporting infrastructure to drive competitive iron and steel production in Ajaokuta and NIOMCO are absent. For example rail lines from Ajaokuta to the Northeast via Otukpo in Benue state, Lafia Obi in Nasarawa state and to Garkida in Adamawa Borno axis to move some special raw materials are all yet to be built.
The same with the rail lines connecting from Otukpo to Onne to Calabar to move limestone from Calabar and iron ore arriving from Guinea Conakry to Onne port for Ajaokuta Steels.
The same applies to the proposed rail lines from Ajaokuta via Ikare in Ondo state to Osogbo in Osun state and to Onibode in Ogun state to move some special raw material to Ajaokuta is not yet built.
The NIOMCO – Ajaokuta- Warri port standard gauge line is yet to be fully completed and operationalised and finally the dredging of River Niger to connect Burutu and Warri Port to connect Onne and Calabar Port to Ajaokuta is also yet to be done.
And it is for all the above reasons that iron and steel can not be competitively produced in Ajaokuta Steel Complex even if the old technology of blast furnaces is completed today.
Know the value
The first step towards a final solution is not another technical committee.
It is not another feasibility study.
It is not another international roadshow in search of investors.
It is to determine, with precision, what Nigeria actually owns in Ajaokuta and NIOMCO.
I respectfully urge you to direct the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to immediately commence the comprehensive commercial valuation of the entire Ajaokuta complex and NIOMCO.
Not for rehabilitation or restructuring.
Every asset should be professionally identified, inspected, valued and documented.
Engineers should determine the condition and commercial value of production facilities, foundries, machine shops, workshops, rolling equipment and industrial plants.
Estate surveyors and valuers should assess the land, residential estates, administrative buildings and other physical assets.
Accountants should establish the financial position of every operational unit.
Lawyers should identify existing liabilities, contractual obligations and legal risks.
Environmental specialists should assess remediation responsibilities.
Independent experts should value the water treatment facilities, internal road network, warehouses, telecommunications systems, hospitals, training institutions, engineering workshops and every other support facility within the estate.
Even the captive utility infrastructure should be independently assessed.
Only after this exercise will the government possess a clear picture of the commercial value of Ajaokuta.
You cannot intelligently restructure what you have never properly valued.
In this case, the new Steel Ministry you created should be returned to the Ministry for Solid Minerals Development as there was no need ab initio to recreate the Ministry
Unbundle everything
Once that exercise is completed, the next decision should be straightforward.
Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and NIOMCO should be dissolved while all the new business units to be incorporated by the BPE can be privatized transparently to would be interested investors.
This decision would put a stop to our national focus on one particular location for iron and steel industrialization in Nigeria.
Instead, it should be unbundled into separate, commercially independent business units.
The new Ajaokuta industrial estate freetrade zone can now attract various types of business ventures because of the existing Geregu power plant and housing estate with road networks to be rehabilitated.
A hospital should not remain tied to a failed steel company.
A housing estate should not remain tied to a blast furnace.
A water utility should not remain tied to a rolling mill.
Engineering workshops should not remain tied to political indecision.
Each business should be allowed to stand, or fall, on its own commercial merit.
That is how modern restructuring of the Ajaokuta Steel complex should be modeled.
Governments do not preserve inefficient conglomerates simply because they once represented national aspirations.
They separate value from failure.
They free productive assets from unproductive structures.
They allow capital to flow where opportunity exists.
That is precisely what Nigeria should now do and not live in the wrong past.
Learn from failure
The painful lessons of the Global Steel dispute should never be forgotten.
Nigeria entered concession arrangements that eventually collapsed, leading to years of litigation and a settlement estimated at about US$496 million, after claims reportedly exceeded US$5 billion.
That enormous payment did not rehabilitate Ajaokuta.
It did not modernise the plant.
It did not produce steel.
It did not create employment.
It became the financial cost of getting the structure wrong.
Imagine what nearly half a billion dollars could have achieved if invested in competitive infrastructure, industrial development or manufacturing support instead of dispute settlement.
That experience should serve as a permanent warning.
I, as the author of this open letter to Mr. President , have nothing against the global steel infrastructure for making such a fortune from the wrong decision to terminate the concession agreement by the late President Yar’adua government.
Nigeria must never again substitute commercial discipline with political optimism, sentiment and emotions.
Another concession built around unrealistic assumptions will simply recreate another future dispute.
The answer is not another investor.
The answer is a new model for Ajaokuta industrial free trade zone status.
Think bigger
Mr President, sir.
Ending the present structure of Ajaokuta should never be mistaken for abandoning Nigeria’s industrial future.
On the contrary, it is the first step towards reclaiming it. Industries must organically grow as they find competitive environments to situate their businesses in Nigeria, it is not by political decree.
For almost five decades, Nigeria has attempted to force thousands of hectares of valuable industrial land, infrastructure and public investment into a single corporate model that has repeatedly failed to justify itself.
That experiment has run its course.
The challenge before your administration is no longer how to preserve Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and NIOMCO.
It is how to unlock the enormous value that still lies within the estate.
That value is real.
The land is real.
The workshops are real.
The housing estates are real.
The hospital is real.
The road network is real.
The utility systems are real.
The engineering facilities are real.
The water infrastructure is real.
The power infrastructure is real.
What has failed is not the estate.
What has failed is the business model.
Your administration now has an opportunity to separate one from the other.
A new beginning
Instead of attempting to resurrect one government-owned steel company, Nigeria should create an entirely new industrial future for Ajaokuta.
I respectfully propose that the entire estate be repurposed into the Midlands Free Trade Zone, Nigeria’s premier inland industrial, manufacturing and logistics hub.
This should not become another government industrial estate managed by ministries and agencies.
It should operate under a Free Trade Zone licence with professional estate and facilities management by a competent private operator selected through a transparent and competitive process.
Government should regulate.
Private enterprise should build.
Within that framework, the estate should be opened to manufacturers, engineering companies, logistics operators, exporters, fabricators, technology firms, research institutions, training centres, warehouses and countless other productive enterprises.
The objective should not be to replace one government monopoly with another.
The objective should be to create an ecosystem where hundreds of businesses compete, innovate, invest and grow.
That is how industrial economies develop.
Not through one state-owned factory.
But through thousands of interconnected private enterprises creating value every day.
Power the future
The Ajaokuta corridor nevertheless retains significant strategic advantages.
The presence of the Geregu I and Geregu II power plants, with a combined installed capacity of about 900 megawatts, presents an opportunity that should not be overlooked.
If competitively priced gas can be secured, these power plants could become dedicated energy sources for the Midlands Free Trade Zone, providing manufacturers with one of the most critical inputs required for industrial competitiveness.
Reliable electricity has always been one of the greatest obstacles to manufacturing in Nigeria.
A well-managed industrial zone supported by dependable power would immediately possess an important competitive advantage.
However, government must recognise that electricity alone is insufficient.
If gas pricing results in excessively expensive electricity, manufacturers will simply establish operations elsewhere.
Competitive energy pricing must therefore become an integral part of the industrial strategy.
Demand accountability
Repurposing Ajaokuta must never mean forgetting its history.
Nigerians deserve a complete and transparent account of how one of Africa’s greatest industrial ambitions produced so little after nearly five decades.
Every major contract.
Every concession.
Every arbitration.
Every settlement.
Every procurement.
Every significant rehabilitation programme.
Every disposal of public assets.
Every major financial commitment.
These deserve proper scrutiny.
Where evidence of negligence, abuse of office, corruption or asset stripping exists, the appropriate institutions should investigate and act.
Public accountability is not about revenge.
It is about restoring confidence that public assets will never again be managed without responsibility.
But accountability should not become another excuse for endless delay.
Nigeria has investigated Ajaokuta long enough.
It is now time to decide its future.
Your legacy
Mr President, sir.
Every administration inherits unfinished business.
Only a few summon the courage to finish it.
Ajaokuta now presents your administration with one of those defining moments.
History will not remember another committee.
History will not remember another memorandum.
History will not remember another promise that steel production is around the corner.
History will remember the President who finally made a decision.
Not the easiest decision.
The right decision.
One that placed Nigeria’s industrial future above political sentiment.
One that replaced uncertainty with clarity.
One that transformed stranded public assets into productive national wealth.
Choose finality
Mr President, I respectfully urge you to bring honourable closure to this long chapter of Nigeria’s industrial history.
Dissolve Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and NIOMCO in its present form.
Direct the Bureau of Public Enterprises to undertake a comprehensive commercial valuation of every asset.
Unbundle the Ajaokuta steel company and NIOMCO into commercially independent business units.
Privatise viable units transparently.
Dispose of assets that no longer possess economic value.
Repurpose the entire complex into the Midlands Ajaokuta Free Trade Zone.
Allow private enterprise, not perpetual government ownership, to determine what succeeds.
That is not the abandonment of Ajaokuta.
It is its rebirth.
Nations are not transformed by preserving yesterday’s failures.
They are transformed by finding new purpose for assets that no longer serve their original mission.
Ajaokuta and NIOMCO has served Nigeria as a dream for forty-seven years.
It is time it began serving Nigeria as an economic asset.
End the uncertainty.
End the illusion.
Unlock the values.
Let history remember your administration not as the one that kept Ajaokuta alive on paper, but as the one that finally gave it a productive future and value additions.
The success story shall be written after we are all gone.
Respectfully yours,
Dan D. Kunle from Abuja, Nigeria
(DEMOCRACY NEWSLINE NEWSPAPER, JULY 14TH 2026)
