The Ruins of Ajaokuta Steel Complex: How We are Affected as Engineers

My Course-mates and I at Ajaokuta Steel Complex, 2016

My course mates and I visited Ajaokuta Steel Complex in the autumn of our University life. Field Trip was a course in the final semester of the last year which would affect our CGPA. The course tasked us to visit some industries in order to know how Mechanical Engineers function in such industries: what their job specifications spell out, as well as how vital these job specifications affect the day to day running of these industries. We visited Ihovbor Power Plant around the City’s outskirt, not too far away from the University. Then, we visited Seven-Up Bottling Company in Isihor, which is few minutes’ drive from the University’s Main Gate. But the most striking of our sojourn was the Field Trip to Ajoakuta Steel Company Limited, located close to the bank of River Niger in Kogi state, Nigeria. The journey wasn’t striking only because of the warmth we felt from familiar laughter and talks from common folks; it was most striking with sadness (for me) because, there, in the 800 hectares Steel Complex, we found out that irrespective of the classes of degrees our laurel institution gave us, Nigeria offered to us (on her blistered palm) a shattered hope for us to struggle over like hungry dogs.

I remember the morning we set out for that memorable journey, we did not see the sunrise above the clouds; the heavens spread out in ashy mist as if it were barely dawn. The rain threatened the earth with its prickling silver rods. The atmosphere was chilling by the time we left the Main Gate. The windows of the long bus owned by the University (which we boarded) were shut and the tiny rods of the silver rain beat the glass panes, slanted at varied angles. I sat behind because firstly, the arrangement placed me there, and then secondly, I loved the back because I could have a free view of everyone everywhere without having to turn around.

It happened that the back seat, where we sat, turned out to be where the fun which lighted our journey, originated from. Here, scapegoats were selected from other sections of the long bus for goading. Wonderful comedians like Achievement Jacobs (the self-style Speaker of the House), Friday Abolorunke, Austin Evbuomwan, Samson Eguaoje, Oju Marvellous, etc were pivotal in the generation of the required fun which sustain our journey towards the North. Snacks were shared and happiness wet our cheeks like wine. We longed for what we wished to see, oblivious to us that it would turn us stale: some of us for a while, while others (like me) for a lifetime.

Our buses moved carefully past the horrible Ekpoma express way filled with puddles upon puddles of rain water, and accelerated past the great Ewu hill (where my friend – Isaiah – hails from). The course-mates in the second bus, from what we later learnt, were having their own nice time, playing cards and teasing whoever presented himself as scapegoats. By the time we got to Auchi, we saw the sun; the earth was dry and the windows were opened to allow air into the bus. We sang music we originated to mock those we felt like mocking. Other times, we stopped along the busy highway to ease ourselves and then continued our journey.

We got to Okene roundabout and turned left, heading to Ajaokuta Steel Complex. The sun was mild, and it had inclined against the western sky by the time we got the large car pack of the administrative block. It was painted with a colour I cannot say was completely brown; it appeared like brown mixed with pink. The concreted car park was sprawling, and because the sun was diffused, we posed for different photographs. We were happy because we had gotten to ‘the cradle of Nigeria’s civilization.’

But after the meal at the company’s café, we began our mournful sojourn into the deeper heart of Ajaokuta Steel Complex: towards the waste that spread out 800 hectares against the western sun. We passed the Oxygen plant originally intended to produce Oxygen for the Blast Furnace. Grasses had grown to inhabit the foundation of the magnificent structures; their paints were peeling off, and reptiles roamed around the little woods which formed beneath them. The Steam Power Plant was still generating power for the National Grid. It was the only section which was functional in this large land filled with different structures. The Power Plant took cooling water from River Niger to cool the condenser and then discharged the hot water back into the River. We visited River Niger, and walked around the tall Water Treatment Plant. Half of its root was buried in the River.

We visited The Training Institute, filled with many lathe machines, millers, grinders, etc. It was a large building with Mango tress heavy with fruits. We plucked enough that we ate, and kept for the journey ahead. But like most sections seen earlier on, this Institute was silent, devoid of humans as if it were made for ghosts and reptiles.

My sadness deepened; the same sadness which had originated immediately we were giving a welcome talk by a Mechanical Engineer. The Engineer had given us the brief history of the Steel Complex; how it was larger by far than the largest University Campus in the country; how it originated, first from the conception of NSDA in 1971, then the contracting of the project to TPE of Russia in 1973, the completion of its feasibility study in 1979 and then the historical laying of the foundation stone in 1980 by the then civilian president, Shehu Shagari. By ’94 when TPE contract was terminated, the first phase of the project (targeted to produce about 1.4million tonnes of iron per year) was 98% completed. It was only the Blast Furnace (the heart of the Steel Complex) that was by that time (till now) not commissioned.

It wasn’t the history of Ajaokuta Steel Complex that shocked me, nor its largeness which spread useless under the fading sun; it was the revelation of what could have been if the Steel Complex was in good working condition. Ten thousand Engineers would have been employed alone, and then many more skilled and unskilled labourers would have been recruited. The revenue generated would have boosted Nigeria’s GDP. The downstream sectors of the Steel Industries would have been affected positively, and millions of well-paying jobs would have been generated, thus unemployment would have been a tale told in the days of yore. Above all, industrialization would have swept the length and breadth of the country.

Our journey back to campus was a defeated one, especially for me. Thinking of what would have been if Ajaokuta Steel Complex was functional, the gloominess of silence possessed me like a plague. The boisterous and happy mood my course-mates and I left campus with had also relaxed considerably. Perhaps, it was because of the fatigue of the journey; or maybe they felt the disappointment I felt too, because some students openly cursed the country; expressed their disappointment for the decayed infrastructure at Ajaokuta Steel Complex; regretted being Nigerians, and why they were born in a country where the leaders are not only corrupt, but vision-less, confused and above all wicked.

                                                     Author: Ohikhuare Isuku