A senior Nigerian presidency official confirmed the contract awarded to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) in 2006 had been suspended so the government could carry out a comprehensive review.

The government informed the company of the fact in an October 3 letter, CCECC representative Chin Hong Bing told a parliamentary committee.

While the government had only paid a small fraction, or 250 million dollars, of the project's cost, Bing said his firm had made some progress on the 1,315-kilometre (817 miles) Lagos-Kano double track standard gauge, which is the first phase of the 25-year-long modernisation project.

The media has criticised the Chinese firm for the slow pace of work at the site. The government of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, which signed the deal, has also been accused of inflating its costs.

Once Nigeria's pride, its railways, like much of the rest of the country's infrastructure, have slowly crumbled into disrepair.

Nigeria has a network of 3,505 kilometres (2,178 miles) of narrow-gauge single track lines, covering nine of the country's 36 states. Most of its 200 locomotives however, broke down long ago.

The only passenger service still operating in the country takes two hours to link central Lagos, the commercial capital, with Ijoko, a small commuter town less than 30 kilometres (20 miles) away.

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