FG asked to pursue completion of Ajaokuta, other steel mills

THE Federal has been called upon to vigorously pursue, complete and put the Ajaokuta iron and steel complex, the Aladja steel rolling mills and the Oshogbo machine tools and Aluminum Smelter project into full and efficient production in order to boost the performance of PRODA, NASENI and FIIRO.
Obibuzor Ifeanyi, President/Chairman of Council Institute of Business Development, who made the call in Lagos, said if   the nation’s steel and petrochemical plants are working well, producing raw materials for hand tools and machine tools, PRODA, FIIRO and NASENI will be in a better position to perform well by getting   those machine to equip their factories to mass produce engineering infrastructure.
Obibuzor, who spoke on the occasion of the Institute’s  summit on ‘Africa Regional Integration for sustainable comparative advantage’ with focus on ICT/telecom, agro-allied, aviation and finance, noted that  these technology development centers for now are doing simple  machine design and production and are capable to mass produce those machines  instead of importing everything from abroad.
“Nigeria, and indeed, the continent will go nowhere without the development of indigenous engineering infrastructures. We must as a nation, and continent develop engineering infrastructure in order to be independent of foreign machines.  We must get our priority right and every other thing will follow; engineering infrastructure must be done by the governments because it takes a lot of gestation period.
There must be commitment from the top to the local government –this is because the entire developed world gave attention to it.  We can’t stop talking about it and unless we do it, there is no where this country is going, there is no where Africa is going because you keep depending on developed countries and they will be laughing at you” he said.
Key speaker, Dr. Mohammed Kafafy, President, World Federation of Business Organisation/ Chief Consultant UNDP- GEF Energy Efficiency Project, noted: “We also need to develop people, not just education for certificates but we need quality education, education that changes mentality, individual life styles. This is the real education.
Source:  vanguard