Pursuing industrialisation and greater self-sufficiency, Nigerian leaders reached an agreement with the Soviet Union to build the Ajaokuta Steel Mill,[1]: 5 a vast complex that would be larger than all the oil refineries in Nigeria combined.
To handle the heavy industrial traffic, plans were drawn up to build a standard-gauge railway from Port Harcourt to Otukpo, where it would branch off for Ajaokuta.
[2] In the meantime, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation had begun work on the Abuja–Kaduna segment of the Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway in 2011.
[8] Despite difficulties with theft of construction materials and land acquisition, CCECC completed the 187 km segment in 2016 as Nigeria's first standard-gauge railway.
[9] Passenger trains quickly became a vital transport link in the capital region as the parallel Abuja–Kaduna Expressway was besieged by robbers and armed kidnappers.
Julius Berger would finish the work that it had already begun, while CCECC would build stations to support passenger trains and rebuild the Itakpe–Ajaokuta section, which had been vandalised for the steel.