Four would be too few. Ten would be too many. Five or nine would presumably produce an unaesthetic, wonky effect.

So the smiling attendants on the test run of the Beijing to Shanghai high-speed rail link revealed precisely six to eight of their teeth to display their pleasure as the train pulled out of the capital. It had, admitted chief conductor Gao Dan, taken considerable practice; in some cases, with chopsticks jammed between their jaws.

Extending 820 miles (1,318km), and spanning seven cities and provinces, China's landmark line was built in 39 months at a cost of 221bn yuan (£21.4bn). But as those gleaming white teeth attest, no detail of this massive project was too minor to be subject to official scrutiny.

The new link not only slashes train times between the country's political heart and its financial powerhouse, it also proclaims its power and accelerated development. It is no coincidence that the line opens to the public on Friday 1 July – the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist party.

"This is the pride of China," said He Huawu, chief engineer at the ministry of railways, minutes before the train pulled out of Beijing South station at 9.01am.

It glided into Shanghai's Hongqiao station at 1.45pm, having briefly touched 190mph; usually it will restrict itself to 186mph. Officials said that 1,500 test trains had clocked up around 2m miles shuttling back and forth since exercises began in mid-May, but this was the first public glimpse of the flagship project.

China is building the world's largest high-speed network, with around 10,500 miles completed or under construction. It has said it plans to spend $30bn (£19bn) this year alone.

But the scale of its ambition has been brought into question by concerns about waste, corruption and safety – particularly since the railway minister, Liu Zhijun, was dismissed this spring for "disciplinary violations".

In March, China's state audit office said nearly $30m of funds for the line were embezzled or otherwise misappropriated during one three-month period of construction last year. The cases are under investigation.

But Hu Yadong, vice minister of railways, told a news conference last week: "We will not slow down the pace, and there will be no cut in investments."

The government has cut the top speed of the trains from 217mph to 186mph; a decision variously ascribed to safety concerns, environmental worries or simply a need to cut ticket prices by reducing fuel consumption.

Even so, the Beijing-Shanghai link halves the journey time by rail from around 10 hours – at its fastest – to just four hours and 48 minutes. It appears an easy sell for business people, delivering a smooth journey with mobile phone signals (and, soon, onboard Wi-Fi) and none of the hassle of airport security. Airlines are reportedly slashing ticket prices already.

Officials say they plan to run 90 trains a day, at 186mph and 155mph. Tickets for the fastest trains cost from 555 yuan (£54) for standard seating. Upgrade to business class, for 1,750 yuan, and you gain fully reclinable seats with individual entertainment systems. In first class, which is pitched between the two, you get Jackie Chan's The Spy Next Door on shared overhead screens.

Meanwhile, through the picture windows, labourers can be seen toiling in the fields. In one spot, three farmers in straw hats were dragging a plough through the rocky soil.

Given the uneven nature of development in China, some see the country's massive investment in high-speed rail as a folly driven largely by the desire for prestige. While this link along the wealthy east coast is expected to make money, others are struggling. Some suggest expanded flights and freight rail capacity would be more sensible ways to connect remote areas.

"[The network] will be a liability, not an asset, for China," Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, told Reuters last week. He cited the example of a Henan-Shaanxi line, designed for 37 million passengers a year, which reported fewer than 2 million in its first six months of operation.

Others fear that poorer travellers – such as tens of millions of migrant workers – will struggle as expensive high-speed services replace much slower, but much cheaper, trains.

But supporters believe high-speed rail will help drive development in the poorer central and western regions, spreading wealth from the wealthy east and south.

No one is more enthusiastic than Xu Yifa, who spent the first six years of his working life shovelling coal – 8,000 tonnes in all, he estimates – into a steam train.

"We couldn't even have dreamed of this. It's hard to imagine China's railways could develop this fast," said Xu, now the deputy secretary of the Zhengzhou railway hub, as the train glided through Hebei province.

"It feels so smooth and comfortable. You can't compare it. [Back then in 1965] it was very shaky."

After almost half a century working on, driving and then overseeing trains, he was thrilled by the changes in China's railway system – and keen to share its benefits.

Beijing's ambassador to the UK suggested last week that Chinese firms could help build a high-speed line between London, the Midlands and the north, saying the country had "the knowledge, expertise and experience".

"Of course! There's no argument," Xu declared when asked whether Britain should buy Chinese.

"China should be the first choice."

History of failed efforts

The history of failed attempts to reconstruct Nigeria's obsolete railway dates back to the Shehu Shagari government of 1979-1983. Other regimes, including those headed by Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha invited Indians, Romanians and the Chinese to handle the project.

But they all failed serially. The nation lost money and nobody was held responsible.

On 9 December 1995, the Abacha-led government signed a $528 million contract with CCECC to rehabilitate Nigeria's entire 3,500km rail network, supply 620 locomotives and rolling stocks and provide technical training for Nigeria Rail Corporation (NRC) staff. It was a four-year project, but it failed in the second year.

Transport ministry officials blamed the Chinese company for the supplying sub-standard locomotives. But the Chinese said most of the sub-contractors, who are local firms, failed to supply the products after they had been mobilised.

In 2006, after receiving a $2.5bn loan - expected to be used on Nigeria's railway project - from the Chinese government, Mr Obasanjo called back CCECCC and awarded them an $8.3 billion five year contract to reconstruct the Lagos-Kano railway.

The project was supposed to be the first phase of a 20-year railway modernisation programme of the federal government.

"The contract provided for an advance payment of $1.1356 billion from the federal government of Nigeria, but so far we have been paid only 250 million dollars in March 2007," CCECC Vice-President Chen Xiaoxing said in a statement in June 2008.

Mr Xiaoxing was reacting to a Punch Newspaper publication which accused the firm and the government of inflating the contract by $5.8 billion.

The rehabilitation contract was cancelled in November 2008. Diezani Alison-Maduekwe, who was heading the Transport ministry at the time, argued that the railway modernization programme faced "constitutional limitations" with regards to funding the project with money from the excess crude.

Tanimu Yakubu, the Chief Economic Adviser to the late president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua also said in a Business Roundtable in Abuja in 2008 that the award of the contract was flawed and failed to meet his boss' Rule of Law principles.

"For an administration that prides itself in the rule of law, I don't see how illegality will be strictly adhered to in the name of continuity," Mr Tanimu said.

The $8.2 billion contract was dumped and the Chinese parted with about $1.6 billion.

In June 2008, before the comments by late Yar'Adua's aides, Robert Ejenavi, former Auditor-General of the Federation had told a Senate Committee on Transport public hearing that the nation spent over $826.6 million without results on railway contracts between 1999 and 2007.

In November 2009, the Yar'Adua government split the Lagos-Kano railway rehabilitation project and awarded the 488km Lagos-Jebba rail track to CCECC for $81.3 million.

The following month, the longer 827 km Jebba-Kano end of the railway was awarded to Costain West Africa at the same cost. In the same swoop, a $180 million contract for the manufacture of 25 locomotives was awarded to General Electric. GE has delivered the locomotives, but there is no track to run them on.

In the heat of 2011 presidential campaigns, President Goodluck Jonathan, on Saturday 12 March 2011 rode on one of the locomotives from Lagos-Abeokuta (98 km line) to attend a rally of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Ogun state capital.

Before he boarded, he admitted he was "highly honoured and pleased to commission the newly acquired locomotive engines".

Yusuf Suleiman, the then transport minister also told journalists that the Lagos-Jebba axis, handled by CCECC, was fully rehabilitated and set for a test run.

Eleven days later, the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) management set out on its first test run in an eight-coach train, packed with journalists, and headed from Lagos to Ilorin. After seven hours of a noisy and bumpy ride, the test run was aborted in Ibadan. The train travelled 109 km.

The test run trip was abandoned because the driver got a radio message advising them to stop at Ibadan because engineers discovered some parts of the rail tracks were still faulty, David Ndanusa, NRC's Assistant Director, Public Relations, who was also on the trip told reporters.

"What is left to be worked on are just the rail tracks," Timothy Oluwole, the train driver confirmed. "The engine is new; it was brought in from Brazil. Every other thing is perfect, but the trip was slow because we wanted to be careful with the tracks."

No firm decision

Successive Nigerian governments have struggled to put the country at a spot where every other developing country - including itself - was at 1950; despite committing huge sums of money that could have constructed new high speed rail, if prudently used. However, each time, the government spends even more to rehabilitate an old railway system.

In China, the 364 km Jiaoji High Speed Rail was built with $1.7 billion, at $4.6 million per kilometre. Meanwhile, when Mr Obasanjo was signing the Lagos-Kano rehabilitation contract in 2006, it was negotiated at $3.06 million per kilometre; 64% of what it cost the Chinese to build their cheapest high speed rail.

The success of the Chinese railway system highlights another difference between the two countries: Nigerian governments' indulgence and high tolerance for corruption.

During the course of the Beijing -Shanghai High-Speed Railway project, in February this year, Liu Zhijun, then Chinese railways minister was dismissed after an investigation into serious violations following a major corruption scandal that raised concerns of costs and safety.

In Nigeria, the senate committee on transportation submitted a report in 2009 indicting some Nigerians but the Sixth senate shunned the report.

The report, which probed government's spending on land transport between 1999 and 2007, chiefly indicted Tony Anenih, a former works minister, for misappropriating funds meant for different land transportation projects. Mr Anenih is a member of the ruling PDP Board of Trustees.

The report also shows that Nigeria's public transportation sector is one huge stretch of fraud involving multiple contract cases and the connivance between contractors and government officials.

The reports recommended that Tony Anenih, Adeseye Ogunlewe, Obafemi Anibaba, and Cornelius Adebayo who headed the transport ministry within that period, their deputy ministers and permanent secretaries be prosecuted.

The report also indicted Diezani Allison-Madueke, for paying more than $8 million into the private account of a company called Digital Toll Gates Limited against the written advice of the Due Process Office. The report now lies in the archive of the senate, notwithstanding the cost of the investigations.

"The Nigerian government should realise that every day that passes without a firm decision taken on this modernisation project will only aggravate the cost in the final analysis," Mr Xiaoxing said in his 2008 statement. His words are still apt.

David Ndakotsu, the spokesman of the NRC, said the Lagos-Jebba rail line handled by CCECC is 90% complete while the Jebba-Kano end is almost 80 percent finished.

"Lagos-Kano transit will likely resume in September," he said.

He also argued that the corporation is fixing the locomotive system rather than build a new High Speed rail because of the electricity energy requirement of speed rails. He added that the highest speed a train can run on the rails after rehabilitation would be between 60 to 62km per hour.

blacksta:

ATM machines tried and tested in many western nations - absolute flawless " unplug the machine and bring the same to Nigeria it is a different story ( machines starts eating money). Good things will only work if their is will power

hahahaha chaiii-welcome to naija

blacksta:

ATM machines tried and tested in many western nations - absolute flawless " unplug the machine and bring the same to Nigeria it is a different story ( machines starts eating money). Good things will only work if their is will power