The Cement Armada of 1975
Sometimes in 1970, there was the six days war between Israel and the Arabs, this war led to quadrupling increase in oil price over night. All of a sudden Nigeria became rich with a lot of money to the extent that Federal government of Nigeria in her magnanimity ordered the immediate effect implementation increase of salary for all the civil servants(Udoji salary awards, 1974). All civil servants' salary were doubled. Of course with the new found wealth a lot of people wanted build their own houses but there was severe cement shortage in the country. The demand for cement and other building materials was astronomical, under pressure from the military the government committed itself to a massive Barrack building program and thus ordered 16 million metric tonnes of cement for the building of Army Barracks alone, amounting to 80% of the country’s total cement import. Although all Nigerian Ports combined could only handle 6.5 million tonnes of general cargo per annum, the governme...