*as FG averts crude oil mistakes, bans export of raw gold, others
Augustine Aminu
The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Mr Olamilekan Adegbite says workers are retained at the Ajaokuta Steel Company to protect the Infrastructure from vandalism.
Adegbite said this when he featured at a forum of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja as monitored by NatureNews.
According to him, it is important to keep the place running.
He said the reason why successive governments could still talk about the company was because of the few workers keeping the place running.
“The steel territory where Ajaokuta sits is about three times bigger than the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“So, you can imagine an investment of that magnitude being left without people to maintain.
“If everybody is withdrawn from there, we would not be sitted ere today talking about Ajaokuta because it will not exist anymore.
“You know who we are. If that place is left like that people will cannibalise the place and turn everything into scrap,” he said.
He said the plants were still functional, adding that at full production, the company was capable of employing more than 10,000 workers.
On whether or not the company had produced anything steel since its establishment in the 70s, Adegbite said it had produced at certain period.
He said, “Ajaokuta has actually produced at certain period.
“It is only that it has not produced liquid steel, which is the ultimate because it can be converted into any desired metal.
“Billets were being imported from abroad, so Ajaokuta has always functioned in one way or the other.
7’So, all these years, alot of investment has gone into training people toward steel production.
“People went on secondment while others were sent for first degree and Masters.
“So many people were trained in Russia because it was built by the Soviet Union in those days.”
The minister further said the workers, some of whom had retired had kept hope alive that Ajaokuta steel company would work.
He said, “these hands were kept together because we do not want to lose them”.
On argument as to whether or not the non-take-off of the company was because the “gods are angry” the minister said the communities had been carried along over the years.
This gesture according to him is to show respect for the people and their culture.
In the same development, Adegbite said the policy known as “Down Stream Mineral Policy” was approved to avert the mistakes made in the oil and gas sector.
He said the enabling environment had been created for stakeholders in the mines and steel sector to add value to mineral deposits before exporting.
He said, “if you mine and you cannot process it yourself, you can sell off to processors in Nigeria.
“These processors would either buy it off you totally or process and resell or they can process and return to you.
“So that is the policy in Nigeria now becaise we do not want to lose jobs or wealth to other countries.”
Adegbite said that when he came into office in 2019, one of the things he realised was that the mining sector was beginning to make same mistake made in the oil and gas sector.
`”You know what we do in oil and gas sector.
“We export crude oil and import petroleum into the country by that we export all our jobs out.
“So I said we cannot make the same mistake with mining so I started very early in 2019 to develop a policy called “Down Stream Mineral Policy, ”he said.
He said the approval of the policy by the Federal Executive Council was a milestone for the sector, saying it would go a long way in repositioning the sector.
While citing the numerous benefits of a mineral deposit called kaolin, the minister said the deposit, which abound in Bauchi State was being used by the pharmaceutical industry.
He said “people in pharmaceutical, plastic, cosmetics and paint industry use kaolin”.
Adegbite said as a fallout of the policy, government had set up demonstration policy centres in Bauchi and other places.
According to him, the plant in Bauchi cannot meet local demand but a demonstration that it is possible.
He called on foreign and local investors who do not want to invest in mining to invest in processing.