TheCable

The federal government has signed an agreement of $6.68 billion with the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) for the construction of the Ibadan-Kaduna railway segment of the Lagos-Kano Railway Line.

Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, said the completion time of the project is between two and three years.

“This one is Ibadan-Kaduna Rail Line which is part of the Lagos-Kano rail line,” the minister said, adding that “the completion time of the contract should between 2-3 years depending on the availability of funds,”  a statement by Yetunde Sonaike, director, press and public relations in the ministry of transportation, quoted him to have said on Wednesday.

Amaechi promised that the ministry should be able to provide its counterpart funding between this and next year’s budget provisions.

“The Ibadan-Kaduna standard gauge line will pass through Oshogbo-Ilorin-Minna to Kaduna, with a single track branch line from Oshogbo to Ado-Ekiti,” the statement read.

“The contract is in fulfilment of the federal government ’s plan to complete the Lagos-Kano rail modernization project which was started in 2006 and broken into segments for implementation in 2008.”

The construction of Abuja-Kaduna rail commenced in 2011 and it was commissioned for commercial operation in 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The construction of the Lagos-Ibadan rail line, which began in March 2017, is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018.

The signing of the Ibadan-Kaduna segment contract agreement concludes all outstanding segments of the Lagos-Kano rail line