Oluchi Chibuzor
The India Minister of State for External Affairs, Mr. Mobashar Akbar, has called on the federal government to continue promoting the tenets of true democracy where the will of the people would always count and not the whims and caprices of the elite.
Akbar disclosed this recently in Lagos while delivering a lecture on ‘India and Nigeria: Partners for Progress in Africa and Beyond, Yesterday’.
He also noted that there is need to allow intellectual bridges across different areas of language, political, and religion for economic equality of citizens.
The minister said Nigeria and India bilateral relations have the potential of becoming a template of modern society for Africa and beyond by promoting intellectual bridges across political, language and religion divide and gender emancipation.
He explained that the relationship between both countries dated back to 1958, and that the lecture gave him the right platform to draw the attention of the missing link between both countries in the areas of intellectual bridges.
Akbar, who further noted that irrespective of previous measures put in place since the establishment of the bilateral agreement to encourage sharing of economic growth to the poorest of people in the 21st century, the World Bank policy does not allow economic equality or progress to “transfer economic growth to those who need it mostly as well as the dignity of the poor.”
According to him, “Democracy is the first feature of modernity which is the right to speak out every day on the equality of every citizen across different language; state, economic and unity diversity.
“The principal challenge to age of prosperity is violence which is a metaphor of many things. Terrorism has a clear objective to destroy the country and create political state where the will of the people does not count.”
On his part, the Director-General of Nigeria Institute of International Affair (NIIA), Ahmed Abubakar, said the dynamics of Nigeria-India relation has taken a new dimension at all levels especially in the areas of academic, military, economic and social.
“What the minister has done today is to show another dimension of the relationship in the sense that the focus is now on domestic aspect such as progress, gender equality, pluralism, as well as ending corruption. This is the focus of the current administration. So if you end corruption, there will be more money for social development.”
