Ajaokuta: $115bn Promise or $36bn Loss? Expert Demands Urgent End to Nigeria’s Steel Paralysis

Segun Atanda/

Nigeria’s long-abandoned Ajaokuta Steel Company has once again come under intense scrutiny, with a leading industrial policy expert warning that the nation stands at a critical crossroads: revive the moribund plant or continue hemorrhaging billions in lost opportunities.

Delivering a keynote address at the Virtual International Conference on Ajaokuta on April 16, 2026, Professor Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka described the steel project as Nigeria’s “greatest unfinished promise” and a symbol of decades of policy failure, urging immediate and decisive action to unlock its vast economic potential.

Originally conceived in the late 1970s as the cornerstone of Nigeria’s industrial revolution, Ajaokuta Steel Company was designed as a massive 24,000-hectare integrated complex with an annual capacity of 1.3 million tonnes of steel, expandable to over 5 million tonnes. By 1994, the project had reached an astonishing 98% completion.

Yet, more than four decades later, the plant remains idle.

Despite an estimated investment of between $6 billion and $10 billion, equivalent to about ₦13 trillion today, the facility has failed to produce a single tonne of primary steel, earning the ignominious label of a “monumental white elephant.”

The consequences of Ajaokuta’s dormancy have been staggering.
Nigeria currently imports about $4 billion worth of steel annually, draining foreign exchange reserves and placing sustained pressure on the naira. According to Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, if Ajaokuta had been operational since the 1980s, the country could have saved an estimated $36.8 billion in import costs alone.

Beyond the financial losses, the human cost has been equally severe. The project was projected to create over 10,000 direct jobs and hundreds of thousands of indirect employment opportunities across mining, engineering, and logistics. Instead, Nigeria lost decades of workforce development and industrial capacity.

The ripple effects extend further: higher infrastructure costs, weakened manufacturing competitiveness, and a stalled industrial base.

Drawing comparisons with countries that leveraged steel as a springboard for development, the professor highlighted how China, India, and South Korea transformed their economies through deliberate industrial policy.

China now produces nearly one billion tonnes of steel annually, while India and South Korea have built globally competitive industries anchored on steel production. In contrast, Nigeria, despite early ambition, remains heavily import-dependent.

“Every tonne of steel imported builds the economies of producing nations,” he warned.

Despite the bleak history, Oyelaran-Oyeyinka insists the future is not lost.
Reviving Ajaokuta, he argued, could deliver transformative economic gains, including:
• Up to $14 billion annual GDP impact
• Nearly $1 billion yearly savings in foreign exchange
• Creation of over 70,000 jobs
• Massive industrial spillovers across construction, automotive, and oil & gas sectors

Conversely, continued neglect could cost Nigeria an additional $115 billion in lost GDP and over $40 billion in future import bills.

In a scathing critique, the professor identified poor leadership and entrenched rent-seeking interests as the principal reasons behind Ajaokuta’s stagnation.

He contrasted Nigeria’s experience with South Korea’s steel success under President Park Chung Hee, whose unwavering commitment led to the rise of POSCO as a global steel giant.

“Ajaokuta is an orphan of perverse politics,” he said, stressing that political will, not technical complexity, has been the missing link.

As a solution, Oyelaran-Oyeyinka called for the urgent privatisation of Ajaokuta, advocating majority ownership by a capable Nigerian consortium with technical partnerships from experienced global steel operators.

He also proposed a fallback option: if vested interests continue to frustrate reforms, Nigeria should support the creation of an entirely new privately driven steel plant, modeled after the Dangote Refinery approach.

“Public ownership of steel has failed. The time for hesitation has passed,” he said.

Framing the issue as one of economic sovereignty, the professor warned that Nigeria must decide whether to remain dependent on imports or reclaim control of its industrial destiny.

For a nation of over 230 million people without primary steel production, he described the situation as “a travesty.”

“Reviving Ajaokuta is not just about steel,” he said. “It is about jobs, growth, and the future of Nigeria.”

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