ABUJA, Dec 3 (BERNAMA-NNN-NAN) -- President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria leaves Abuja Thursday for Johannesburg to participate in the 6th Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) Summit to be held on Friday and Saturday.
Mallam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President for Media and Publicity, said in a statement here Wednesday that while in South Africa, Buhari would follow up on his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in November in New York.
"President Buhari had indicated to Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, at the bilateral meeting in New York that he wanted China to re-commence stalled railway projects under new terms that would see China providing nearly all the financing required," the statement added.
"Of particular interest is the coastal railway project stretching for 1,402 kilometres linking Lagos in the west with Calabar in the east, a project that is expected to be financed with a 12 billion US dollars Chinese loan and which will create about 200,000 jobs.
"Another rail project that will be up for renegotiation is the US$8.3 billion Lagos-Kano standard gauge modernisation project, of which only a segment, Kaduna-Abuja, has reached completion stage."
The statement said that Buhari would also discuss with Xi ways of removing all obstacles in the way of the 3,050-megawatt (MW) Mambila power station, considered a strategic project which was conceived in 1982 but had not taken off.
It added that the Chinese president had informed Buhari of the willingness of his country to finance the whole project through a special loan.
The President would be accompanied to Johannesburg by Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyema; Transportation Minister Chubuike Amaechi and Industry, Trade and Investment Minister Okechukwu Enelamah.
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