A £6.68bn contract has been signed to complete the network’s remaining segments (Image: Getty)
A new £9billion is being constructed in which is set to connect two major cities.
The 835-mile-long Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway will link Lagos to Kano in .
The former is a port on the Atlantic Ocean, the latter near the border with .
Services will also pass through the country’s capital city of Abuja.
The new line replaces the Cape gauge network, built by the British between 1896 and 1927.
Part of the Standard Gauge Railway is already up and running, as two segments have been completed and begun passenger trains.
: [REPORT]
The railway will connect Lagos to a host of other places in Nigeria (Image: Getty)
The line between Abuja and Kaduna officially opened in July 2016, and the ribbon of the section between Lagos and Ibadan cut in June 2021.
In May 2018, Nigeria’s minister for transportation signed a $6.68billion contract with the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) to complete the remaining segments of the railway.
The sections that still need to be built are between:
- Ibadan and Osogbo-Ilorin
- Osogbo and Ado Ekiti
- Ilorin and Minna
- Minna and Abuja
- Kaduna and Kano
But this may not be the end, as a further section is in the offing.
: [REPORT] [REPORT] [REPORT]
Services will travel between Lagos and Kano (Image: Getty)
In 1987, the Nigerian government awarded a contract to build the country’s first standard gauge railway.
This linked mines at Itakpe to the Ajaokuta Steel Mill, and built line on to the port city of Warri.
Although, the project ended up “in limbo”, and was incomplete when the Abuja–Kaduna line opened. CCECC took over construction on the line.
In September 2020, the 326km Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri network was officially inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari for commercial operation.
In October 2019, the Nigerian government signed a $3.9billion contract with the China Construction Railway Corporation (CCRC) to build a railway connecting Abuja to Itakpe.
This contract also included the construction of Warri seaport.