Commuters sit on coaches of a train on the rail track at Oshodi district of Lagos, Nigeria. AFP/Pius Utomi Ekpei

ABUJA – Nigeria on Monday signed a deal worth almost a billion dollars with a state-owned Chinese engineering firm to resuscitate part of its dilapidated railway system, the transport minister said.

The 875-million-dollar (588-million-euro) contract was signed by Transport Minister Ibrahim Isa Bio and the managing director of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), Zhou Tianxiang, in Abuja. The deal constitutes the first phase of the country's railway modernisation plans.

As part of it, a railway track will be rebuilt between the administrative capital Abuja and the northern city of Kaduna -- a distance of roughly 200 kilometres (125 miles) — over the next three years.

The Chinese government has granted Nigeria a concessionary loan of 500 million dollars for the project.