Nigeria, India Identify
Nigeria, India Identify Cooperation for
Development
Nigeria and India have a lot to benefit from each other through
development cooperation, the Budget and National Planning Minister,
Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, told the Indian High Commissioner to
Nigeria, Mr AbhayThakur, who visited him in Abuja on Thursday.
The Minister said that there are lots of potentials in Nigeria
that India could tap while Nigeria has a lot to learn from India’s
successes in the areas of technology, particularly rail and power,
as well as human capital development.
He explained that the Buhari Administration is focused on
bridging the infrastructure gap in the country, particularly
transportation and power infrastructure; and is very desirous of
creating avenues to lift majority of Nigerians out of poverty
through agriculture and other empowerment programmes.
President Buhari, he said, has a vision and dream of connecting
every city and town in Nigeria with standard gauge rail lines; and
Nigeria would stand to benefit from India’s experience as well as
assistance in achieving the goal in the rail sector. “This is an
area we will like to collaborate with you to see how we can tap
from India’s experience,” he said.
Like India, Nigeria has been working hard to bring down its
poverty levels, which is why government is putting a lot of
resources in the area of empowering poor and vulnerable persons and
lifting them out of poverty. N500 billion is annually provided for
in the national budget for social intervention programmes which are
targeted at empowering the people so that they can be useful to
themselves and the society. He emphasised that under the Social
Intervention Programme (SIP), “we are not just giving the people
fish, we are also teaching people how to fish.|”
Senator Udoma said although India is one of Nigeria’s largest
trading partners, especially in crude oil, he would want the Asian
country to buy more of Nigeria’s oil and also develop interest in
the country’s gas sector.
He assured the High Commissioner that the tempo of economic
activities in the country will not slow down due to the forthcoming
general elections as “the President is not looking at the next
election, but looking at the next generation with the purpose of
taking Nigeria to the next level”.
The High Commissioner, Mr Thakur, who resumed work in Nigeria
last month said India was willing to strengthen its development
cooperation with Nigeria and would be glad if Nigeria can take
advantage of some of the assistance programmes the Indian
Government has made available to the African continent.
He pointed out that although the leaders of the two countries
had some dreams about development cooperation in some critical
areas, some of those dreams are yet to be transformed into real
projects on the ground.
Mr Thakur said India would like to collaborate further with
Nigeria in the rail and power sectors as well as any other areas of
interest to Nigeria.
Signed
Akpandem James