Follow Financial Times journalists as they set out on a journey from Lagos to Kano by train...
Standing on the train platform in Lagos with a tiny pink ticket in her hand, Cyrina Kazeem, a 63-year-old grandmother, felt like a wide-eyed child again. More than 50 years ago, before Nigeria's railway network had fallen into disrepair, her father treated her to a train journey every Christmas.
Now she was preparing for her first rail trip in decades – a 1,126-kilometre journey across the most populous country in Africa, from the commercial capital Lagos in the south to Kano, the main city in the north.
