FORGING THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY IN NIGERIA; IDENTIFYING THE PROSPECT AND IMPEDIMENTS

Abstract

With renewed efforts to revive the Iron and Steel Industry in Nigeria, this paper attempted a re-visit of the industry by attempting to know;

• The state of affairs of the Iron and Steel industry in Nigeria?


• Science, Technology and Development indicators for Nigeria especially on manufacturing, in line with the state of affairs.


• The Science and Technology policies pertaining to industry support and the level of government efforts, as well as;


• Whether the government is conversant with the political economy of Steel manufacturing. The paper relied on empirical data of notable institutions as well as secondary data from related studies.

Among major findings are that even though Nigeria is blessed with an abundance of raw materials, there has been no consistent progression in the state of affairs of iron and steel production in Nigeria. There are also issues of policy inconsistency. Nigeria has neither made an appropriate deployment of Iron and Steel, nor taken any concrete effort to sustain the development. Government is also not seen to be conversant with, and ready to align with the established political economy especially of the dynamics of ‘visible and invisible actors within the global system. However despite the seemingly unimpressive performance of Nigeria and its recent bid to revive the Iron and Steel industry in the country, it is believed that the steel industry in Nigeria could still be reactivated to provide the necessary vehicle for industrial growth, provided there is commitment and patriotism especially of the government