If corruption was an issue of the presence of individual ‘rotten apples’ in the state, it would suffice to arrest such individuals to cleanse the system. That it is not so proves the story of the steel plant of Ajaokuta, Nigeria, where corruption has been the system for decades. With a new legislature and an impending cabinet, what next for Ajaokuta?

Several government changes, commissions of enquiry, senate committees, even arrests, have not been able to stop the bleeding of the tormented Ajaokuta steel manufacturing plant in Kogi State, Nigeria, the second largest in Africa and twelfth largest in the world, for the past four decades. When abundant resources of steel were discovered in the region in the early eighties of the last century, the new steel plant at Ajaokuta was seen as a promising project, meant to generate close to a million jobs and propel Nigeria finally into industrialised manufacturing.

But most of the ten thousand shiny new houses built for prospective mine workers and their families at the time are now abandoned and overgrown with weeds, connected by ghost paths where armed robbers hide. No less than four mining projects turned- plunder-exercises by old and new captors in the past thirty-six years have enriched individual politicians, their bankers and other wealth managers, who managed to lay their claws on the project.

It delivered some steel once, during the first six months of its operations in 1983, and never since. The revivals that weren’t When asked when Ajaokuta would start to produce steel again, the immediate past government minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, responded sagely that the roads in the area should be done up first, because if not, how were you going to transport it to customers? He was right: the roads in Ajaokuta, constructed in the 1980s, are now in a bad state. But remarkably, it was the first time anybody ever asked this question. As if it had never really been a plan to get any actual steel from the mine at the time of any of the other revivals. Today, expired asphalt disintegrates from the base of the expressway to Ajaokuta, exposing the white sharp-edged stones underneath.

The houses around the mining compound have lost windows, doors and corrugated roofing sheets. Behind a large faded gate one can still see the gigantic but now rusty machines, dilapidated factory buildings and abandoned tractors meant for the ambitious steel complex that was meant to change the economic story of Nigeria no less than four times. Wives and children of idling mine workers are hawking fried yam, plantain, corn, bean cakes and fast foods for passing travellers. The Ajaokuta steel plant was first almost completed in 1983. Russian Tyazhpromexport (TPE) had delivered the machines and heavy equipment; Germany’s Julius Berger had fixed the complex network of rail lines from the port to Ajaokuta, while the French had carried out the civil work, including road construction, housing estates, and other foundations for physical structures. The total investment according to a World Bank estimate was over US$ 7 billion.

But since all the contracts had included large slices for the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the money was finished then. “Ajaokuta was a drainpipe for the NPN government. Through Ajaokuta, money was being funnelled from the system into the party,” says Chief Paul Unongo (74), then Minister of Steel Development. “I was forty. I wanted the project to work. We produced steel for six months. But I was made to resign (through political pressure, TA) because I stood in the way of those who wanted to move money from Ajaokuta for selfish purposes.” I was made to resign because I stood in the way A later communication from the US Embassy on Ajaokuta’s history, captured by Wikileaks, confirms:

“According to the GON [Government of Nigeria] and Embassy contacts, since 1979 (the) Ajaokuta Steel Complex has been used as a mechanism to grant contracts to contractors performing substandard work at overinflated prices while providing senior GON [Government of Nigeria] officials with large kickbacks. The GON estimates it has spent at least US$ 5 billion on what was to be Africa’s largest steel production facility, while World Bank estimates put the cost at about US$ 7 billion (not adjusted for inflation). That (…) administration may have thought the project feasible, (…) but within a few months senior GON officials were already siphoning off millions in kickbacks from real and false contracts for the complex’s construction.”

The corruption surrounding the Ajaokuta construction had been so blatant that it contributed to the collapse of Johnson Mathey Bank of London in 1983. According to another Wikileaks cable, Johnson Mathey had acted as “a conduit to transfer hard currency for some party members in Nigeria. A few leading officials and politicians had amassed large amounts of money. They sought to transfer the money out of the country (…) by issuing import licenses (for fictitious items).” The collapse of Johnson Mathey, which had conducted much unsavoury business with many unsavoury clients globally (1), would inaugurate an era of stronger banking controls in the UK.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/vultures-of-steel-ajaokuta-where-corruption-is-the-system.html

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