The Federal Government has kickstarted a $3 billion rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Eastern Railway line that links major cities across the country.
The rail line is expected to move from Bonny Ports to Port Harcourt in Rivers State and when completed would connect Rivers, Abia, Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Kaduna, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno States by rail.
The project which marks the latest step in an ambitious plan to create a nationwide rail network intended to help accelerate Nigeria’s economic diversification plan away from crude oil, will involve the revamping of a dilapidated 1,443-kilometer (897-mile) line that starts from the southeastern oil hub of Port Harcourt and terminates at the northeastern city of Maiduguri.
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President Muhammadu Buhari at the virtual flag-off of the project said, ‘’The contract has the objective of resuscitating the once vibrant railway transportation in the eastern corridor of the country.’’
The project which will see the South Eastern states connected to the rail line will be executed by the Nigerian subsidiary of state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corp.(CCECC) as the main contractor.
The Minister for Transportation, Rotimi Amechi, at the ceremony said that the Federal Government is expected to provide about 15% of the $3 billion costs of the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri rail line while the outstanding balance will be coming from a syndicate of Chinese financiers.
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What you should know
- The flag-off of this ambitious project by the Federal Government would come as a huge relief to agitators from that region who complained about being left behind in the current administration’s railway modernization projects as rail projects are going on in other regions and none had taken off in the region.
- Nigeria has previously completed the Abuja-Kaduna rail line and Lagos-Ibadan rail line with work on a $1.8 billion line that will link the northern trading hub of Kano to the town of Maradi in neighbouring Niger commencing last month.
The #PortHarcourtMaiduguriRailLine when completed, would connect Rivers, Abia, Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Kaduna, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno States by rail. pic.twitter.com/ncmG8U688C
— Chibuike.R. Amaechi (@ChibuikeAmaechi) March 9, 2021
Chike please do you mind looking into how this narrow gauge system is been phased out across the globe. This also makes it impossible for te more improved standard gauge system that FG is building Nigeria to interconnect or inter-operate with this because they’re generations apart in technology and use. The speed range and loading capacities are also widely apart. This rail project will set the region decades back. I have been made to believe by research that the cost of the a standard gauge is same as this one. Please look into it and help shed light on it. What might the intent be in singling this corridor out for outdated rail technology while the rest of the country and indeed the world has moved to standard gauge system.