NIGERIA: Minister of Transportation Sa’idu Alkali flagged off an inaugural train to mark the completion of work to modernise the 62 km Port Harcourt – Aba line on April 30, and has provided an update on progress with other ongoing rail projects.
The upgrading of the 1 067 mm gauge Port Harcourt – Aba line forms part of the Eastern Narrow Gauge Railway project to modernise the 1 443 km route between Port Harcourt and Maiduguri in the northeast.
The project aims to raise the speed of passenger trains to 100 km/h and freight trains to 80 km/h, and includes construction of new stations, an industrial park in Port Harcourt, development of the Bonny deep water port and the supply of modern rolling stock.
The next section to be completed will be the 181 km from Aba to Enugu.
The work is being undertaken by China Civil Engineering Construction Corp under a contract awarded by the federal Ministry of Transport in October 2020. The project was originally expected to take three years, but technical and contractual issues delayed the start of work until March 2022.
The overall cost is estimated at US$3·2bn, with the federal government to cover 15% and the remaining 85% to be financed through loans which are expected to be finalised soon.
Meanwhile, the federal government has announced that freight operations on the upgraded 1 067 mm gauge Lagos - Kano line are expected to restart in June, now that contractor CCECC has connected the line to Dala Dry Port in Kano.
‘It will bring the cost of business to be low’, said Alkali during a site visit on May 9. ‘We will reduce the menace of road traffic accidents. We will save our highways, and the multiplier effect is on the GDP growth of the country.’
The minister said the 387 km Kano - Daura modernisation scheme is expected to be completed in 2025 and construction of the Daura – Maradi and Kano – Dutse lines in 2026.
