It was the night the nearly 30,000-strong Indian community in Nigeria had been waiting for since they saw Jawaharlal Nehru in their midst 45 years ago.
ABUJA: It was the night the nearly 30,000-strong Indian community in Nigeria had been waiting for since they saw Jawaharlal Nehru in their midst 45 years ago. And their wish was fulfilled when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh toasted these 'ambassadors of goodwill' who have acted as 'the bridge that unites India and Nigeria'.
"To the members of the Indian community let me say that India is proud of you. You are the bridge that unites India and Nigeria," Manmohan Singh told enterprising and successful Indians who had come to listen to him from different parts of their adopted homeland in Nigeria on Sunday night.
"You have acquitted yourself most creditably. You have contributed to the development of friendship and goodwill between our countries," Manmohan Singh, the first Indian prime minister to come on a bilateral visit to India since Nehru in 1962, said at the glittering Hotel Hilton amidst repeated rounds of applause.
Manmohan Singh began his historic three-day visit to Nigeria Sunday, a trip that is set to energise relations between India and Africa's oil capital and take bilateral ties to 'a higher and qualitatively new footing'.
Lauding the 'remarkable adaptability and resilience' of Indian communities all over the world, Manmohan Singh promised them that India would do all it could to assure the safety and security of its citizens abroad - a veiled reference to the precarious security situation in the oil-rich Niger Delta where many Indians work in the oil industry.
There have been many cases of foreigners, including Indians, being kidnapped by militants operating in the Niger Delta.
"We have been assured at the highest levels of the host government that this is a matter that is being given high priority. Our mission will offer all necessary assistance to our citizens in distress," he said.
The Indian community in Nigeria has scripted a unique success story in Nigeria with "their initiative, enterprise and hard work".
Indian industry and business has emerged as the second largest employer in Nigeria. Nearly 22,000 Indians are settled in Lagos, the coastal city that is the country's business hub. Other cities Indians have made home in this country are Ibadan, Kaduna and the Nigerian capital Abuja.
"They enjoy a high social and economic standing in Nigeria," India's High Commissioner to Nigeria H.H.S. Viswanathan told.
Indian teachers who came in the 1970s and 1980s have taught a generation of Nigerian leadership and elite and are fondly remembered in this country.
The first wave of Indian migration started in the 1950s with mostly Sindhi traders setting their shop. Teachers and doctors followed in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1990s saw a more diverse mix of Indians coming in Africa's largest oil producing country with IT professionals topping the list.
The prime minister also enunciated his vision of shaping "a strong contemporary partnership" between India, the largest democracy in the world, and Nigeria, the largest democracy in Africa and praised "the openness of Nigerian society that has created an enabling climate for our people to do well and flourish".
Showcasing a strong and vibrant nation, which has entered a new phase, the prime minister invited the Indian community to contribute their "spirit, endeavour and enterprise in the services of your homeland".
Underlining the transformation of India's image in the world, the prime minister spoke about the surging confidence to sustain an economic growth rate of 9 to 10 percent in the days to come.
"We need this rapid economic growth to meet our socio-economic objectives and rid our country of chronic poverty. India offers limitless opportunities and is looking to its overseas communities to contribute to their might," he said.
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