In the second quarter of the year 2020, I had the privilege of visiting the then General Manager engineering services, Ajaokuta Steel Company Ltd, Engr Jide Suru. It was a move to massively transform the socio-economic landscape of Yagba West LGA through acquisition of relevant skills by the youths.
Based on our analyses, the move would, in addition to creating jobs, stem the tide of youth restiveness and general sense of insecurity that we were spending so much to contain. The idea made sense to our stakeholders as well as our critics.
Ajaokuta is a mammoth national asset. It is an amazing industrial mystery that was meant to take away the a substantial part of the nation’s misery. It is another compelling evidence that this country once had a pact with truth, vision and grand ideas.
Ajaokuta Steel has a training institute of a size that reportedly has no match in the comity of engineering schools in this country. Nigeria has so much behind its humble decrepit façade. The deeper you dig, the humbler, if not sadder, you get.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my principal Dr Yahaya Bello of Kogi State for the privilege to give expression to some of my core beliefs. There is just so much available to our country to surpass global expectations.
As the young and energetic Pharm Asuku prepares to take over the reins of governance, it is my firm hope and prayer that the spirit of our brilliant heroes past will possess him. I pray he would care not about the number of years he serves but the amount of positive impacts he is able to make as a driver of one of the sub-nationals of our massive federal republic.
– Tade Oshaloto writes from Lokoja.
