Buhari Approves Contract For Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Rail Line
Nigerian President Buhari has approved the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri rail line.
“The Federal Executive Council has approved the award of contracts for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri eastern narrow-gauge railway, with new branch lines and trans-shipment facilities,” Nigeria’s transportation minister Rotimi Amaechi said on Wednesday after the FEC meeting.
“The railway line will be at the cost of $3,020,279,549,” he added.
Amaechi said the Port Harcourt to Maiduguri narrow gauge railway will have new branch lines – from Port Harcourt to Bonny and from Port Harcourt to Owerri.
“There is another connecting to narrow gauge to standard gauge at Kafanchan. There is a branch line from Gombe or before Maiduguri to Damaturu and Gashau,” he said.
The Eastern rail line was first constructed by the British colonialists several years before the country’s Independence in 1960.
Before it fell into comatose, the line facilitated movement and trading between the south and the north, accelerated urbanisation in Kafanchan and Jos, and buoyed the mining sector.
The rehabilitation of the rail was first initiated by former President Goodluck Jonathan administration in May 2010.
