Nigeria is set to begin work on a $2bn rail line to Niger according to a tweet posted Friday by the federal transportation minister, Rotimi Amaechi.

Amaechi said President Muhammadu Buhari would perform the groundbreaking ceremony for the line. 

He added in a separate tweet that work would also begin “shortly” on a $3bn project to rehabilitate the 1,000km narrow-gauge line between Port Harcourt and Maiduguri on the border with Chad.

The standard-gauge line will run between the Kano, capital of the northern Nigerian state of Kano, and Maradi, the second largest city in Niger and a centre of the country’s developing oil industry. It will also run east from Kano to Dutse, the capital of Jigawa State.

Amaechi’s announcement follows a decision to approve the scheme taken by Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council in September.