Transport minister refutes claims of high-speed rail approval

The Federal Ministry of Transportation has dismissed reports claiming that a high-speed bullet train linking Lagos and Abuja is set to cut travel time between both cities to just two to three hours.

In a statement issued by the ministry’s management, it was clarified that the news report, published by a major news media (not Vanguard) on February 18, 2025, was false and misleading.

The report alleged that Nigeria’s transport sector was undergoing a revolution with the imminent launch of the bullet train, citing the Director of Operations at Geofocus Consortium, Engineer Yinka Idris, as its source.

The ministry confirmed that Geofocus Consortium had submitted an unsolicited proposal for the Lagos-Abuja bullet train project in 2016 under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model with 100% private sector financing.

However, it was only in 2024 that the Outline Business Case (OBC) for the project was forwarded to the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) for due diligence.