 Hello and welcome to today's edition of the run-up. My name is Nyamgul Agadje. And I am Uche Chuku Onoddu. The G20 Summit has just ended in Bali, Indonesia, and it might be the first platform to push for softening Western rhetorics against Russia's invasion of Ukraine on its sidelines. It will bring you an exclusive interview with Serinda Oberoi. He is a freelance journalist, an international relations analyst, and a former AFP. In that interview, he sheds more light on the G20 conversation. There's also the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zehna Bakmet, that said that the federal government will do away with petroleum subsidy by June 2023. What does this entail for the average Nigerian? We will be having Dr. Chui Keuba, an economist and analyst, have this conversation with us. And now we take a break so that we bring you the interview with Serinda Oberoi. Stay with us. The run-up continues in a bit. Don't go anywhere. As you know, we're talking about the G20, and we hear that India and China, as countries, have likely insulated Russia from Western sanctions. Why is India interested in the stability of Russia, and what is the extent of relations between India and Russia to warrant this? See, first of all, as we all know that India, I mean, first of all, India and I, like Nigeria, they are countries like NAMM, so they literally look for their own interest and individual decisions. But having said that, you know, India and Russia always have been on a very good wicket. The relationship you look into most of the wars which have taken place between India and Pakistan, where Americans had put up sanctions against India at that time, but Russians were always there as first country to support and help India in different issues that might be a war of 1965, 61, sorry, 71, or even at the time of Kargil. Secondly, Russia has always stood against any sanctions. For example, when India went nuclear, as far as their weapons are concerned, Russia was the one who gave more or less like a room to India and vetoed the issues. So this is the time when Russia is India. So I personally feel that India will not let them down, even though India, the present scenario does have a very good relation with the United States also because of Indo-Pacific, which is a separate topic and not to be discussed, where Russians are not really comfortable with India on that issue or the way India is now buying the new weapons sort of a thing. But India is grown up, I would say right now. I shouldn't say they have crossed their limits, but they have been taking decisions from country to country and individual issues. And here as far as relations with Russia is concerned, I think India will stand with Russia in all respect. And that gives a big room and support to Russia also. Okay. Well, the countries that are supporting Ukraine, for instance, the western countries and Europe that are supporting Ukraine are also directly involved in the provision of arms and other kind of financial aid. Is India in any way directly involved in financing Russia in prosecution of this war? See, India is only doing the business with them trade. We can, the only blame which can be put up on India is about buying energy. And time and again, the both Prime Minister of India as well as the foreign minister them said that in fact, what they are buying is less than what is still being supplied to the European countries from the Russian country, despite several sanctions which are there. Yes, and they have made it very clear, even in this G20 meeting, they have made it clear that they will continue to buy the energy which is required. In fact, Prime Minister went into a statement where he said that the chain supply needs to be protected. It needs to be given, it needs to be given a fair treatment. And that is where the things will continue as far as India is concerned. But India very strongly has also opposed the war. Prime Minister again in G20 in his speech mentioned about the ceasefire which he had asked for and asked for a diplomacy that it needs to be there. And I think India would not mind if the world is ready to accept India as a negotiator in it or maybe it's happening, which I don't know because many a times confidential talks do take place. But there have been frequent visits of Indian top officials as well as the ministers to Moscow. Like recently India's foreign minister was there. So I personally feel that India will not support financially in that way. But as far as the business is concerned, trade is concerned, they may cross the limits or buy more cheap oil which they are getting right now. I know you've already said something about the fact that maybe there are negotiations going on that you don't know because there could be high level confidential negotiations. But we understand that the new chair of the G20 which is the Indonesian president is trying to open talks between the US and Russia. Do you see India playing a role in it? A role that the world can see that is not confidential like you said. Yeah, see first of all I personally see it's my personal view that G20 is not a platform where issues of security will be discussed in a bigger way. But as far as the side talks are concerned, this gives an opportunity for most of the top leaders to have one-on-one talks and negotiations. And the statement which came from the Indian point of view which stressed on ceasefire and I quote ceasefire and diplomacy automatically speaks about that India is playing some sort of a role in that. And they have been Indian Prime Minister time and again have directly dealt with the Ukraine top officials sorry the chief of the Ukraine country as well as with the Russian president as well as the foreign minister which is there. So there could be India playing a role in doing this thing but India has very strongly directly told Putin also that this is not an era of war. So there are strong statements which are coming directly from Prime Minister to the president of Russia where they are stressing that war is not the solution you have to come for the negotiation. And similarly I think that now West also needs to prepare Ukraine and I think to some extent Ukraine is ready to negotiate. Of course they are putting up some sort of conditions which we read in different media reports which are coming up. But I think it must be when there have been some withdrawals or taken back some of these areas giving some sort of a room. I mean today also like yesterday only India again went for a I mean abstain themselves from the sanctions which United Nations General Assembly was making against Russia on the cost of war that they had to pay for it. So I personally see that all these things are the steps towards negotiations now. Now these are the they are asking for the maximum and the issues of minimum negotiations are going to take place because sanctions have not played a major role for me I would say. Why I'm saying this thing that that war should have ended by now. But Russia's economy if you read into the economic reports which are coming of course from the Russian media only it's around four percent decrease which has happened not a major thing and rest they have been able to substitute for example some of these American chains which were very popular like McDonald's or Starbucks and other things which got closed six seven months earlier. But I have been told that they are running with re-Christian name the Russian names and the stuff is same so same things are happening and having said that we should also not ignore the gray market which is there. So Russia continues to work on the gray market business which is happening and I don't know how many countries must be getting the oils through that black marketing or a gray market which is happening there. So sanctions have not played a role what I mean to say is that they have not been able to put up a pressure. So that's why things are now shifting towards negotiation and when the statements from the leaders are coming up especially in G20 meeting also about ceasefire about diplomacy I think it's going towards that way and I personally feel India is being trusted by many of the countries at the present juncture. By way of emphasis I'd just like you to clarify what you meant when you said that the G20 is not the right avenue it's not the right platform for that because the G20 came together because of economic purposes and you are concerned about what goes on in other countries and that for me is directly linked to security as well the economy and security they usually go together. So if you say it's not the right platform what is the platform and what can the G20 do on the platform that is the right one to make sure there is this peace between Russia and Ukraine? See what I mean to say is that this is a good platform but final decisions will not be taken as far as the security issues are concerned. This gives a room an opportunity a place a neutral place to discuss the I mean for example India has not been talking to China for a long time since 2020 March April when there were clashes on the border but this gave an opportunity to the Indian Prime Minister at least to shake hands and same is true with Putin who has been able to now break the ice even though both stand by their own issues that might be Taiwan or China's road and belt and other policies which are there. I personally see that here this is more or less like a conclusion of the Bali meeting which is happening where handover of the G20 will happen to India. Of course this is a good platform a multilateral platform but finally things will have to move under the United Nations General Assembly or the security which is there or directly between the two here only those initial things can be there some wrinkles can be removed that can be ironed out and some negotiations can be taken place which will be more or less like a confidential talks and other things this might bring in some good seeds of negotiations I would say in this type of meetings but finally they will have to take the decisions on some other account and not in this particular meeting. Now when you were talking about the fact that functions have not really worked some people feel the reason is because the powerhouse the economic powerhouse has shifted from Europe now to Asia and that's why these sanctions are not working so are you of the same school of thought? Yes you see this is one of the facts also that both powerhouses India and China continues to do their regular business with Russia you look into their export and import and even they are now trying to work in their own local currencies between the two countries so that has helped indirectly I mean there was a blame game on India that India is reselling the oil cheap oil which they are energy which they are bringing it from them which India denied of course but of course when they are getting those cheap things which are there but again you need to look into the as I said that sanctions should be in such a way which should give some sort of results and that is not happening and that is where they need to rethink about that when you put up a sanction and how to withdraw in that particular atmosphere and is it effective enough I mean it can happen to some of the countries which are not economically well established but here it's a one of those pillars I would say which is being supported by again China the now the equation which is called as G2 between the US as well as the China sort of a thing so naturally they will not be much effective so as you rightly said that yes these two pillars are keeping Russia more or less in a vibrant state India and Nigeria they have a relationship they've maintained a relationship a good one a strong one in economy medical tourism security and even education because there are so many Nigerian students in India as we speak right now so what else can be done to further improve these relations between Nigeria and India especially in the light of the fact that some Asian countries are making inroads into Africa and Nigeria in particular take for instance China so what is the plan of India towards strengthening this relationship with Nigeria see I personally see that the relationship between the two countries is slowly but surely developing and trust level is increasing I would say but have you said that what is more important is more interaction which I think is lacking it's not happening and it has to be at the multiple level for example connectivity between India and Nigeria is very low you need to have direct flights and maybe more than one flights both have got huge populations both have got huge interest huge amount of export and imports are also increasing when you compare from 2020, 2021, 2022 the arrow goes up as far as the commodity exporter reports are concerned I personally see a air connectivity is very important you need to have more than two or three flights every day to start with and there should be direct flights between Nigeria and New Delhi or I mean any of these capitals or financial capital Bombay, Bangalore and other areas be people to people contact is also not that big I understand that medical health as well as education has started working around but I still see very few students of Nigeria only around 2000 student I think got admission this year for Indian universities while Indian universities are now doing very well so programs in education especially links between universities different universities are very important different type more use are to be looked into and also same way the studies between the two countries the two democracies needs to be increased there needs to be special courses which needs to start between the African countries having Nigeria as the top democratic country in it as well as between India you know the South-South cooperation has been quite good between the two countries how we can further enhance it and I think role of think tanks is again important here you need to build up that intellectual connections where more discussions should happen more intellectuals of Nigeria need to attend the meetings here you see India is already now trying to raise their I would say trying to be on the high table when I say high table they're trying to literally reach on the different multiple types or platforms which are there for example they are heading right now the healthy sugar cares of the WHO they are going to be the G20 heads already India has started two multilateral platforms one in solar energy as well as in the infrastructures at a time of disasters so there again some links needs to be made and of course the new issues which are there that is cyber warfare terrorism counterterrorism a lot can be done between the two countries there's so much of cultural resemblance the historical facts between the two countries what we need is more platform for the students where some amount of money is sanctioned to be built up and things can really jump up you need a I call it as a leapfrog jump which is required between the two countries rather than going slow at the present moment because relationship if you look into the last 60 years has really been developing between the two countries and I have I'm yet to see some anti-Nigerian statements coming from India or anti-India statements coming from Nigerians it's not there and this needs to build up I personally feel people to people come as well as think that can play a major role well I'll just like to finally ask you this they say show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are that means whatever circle of friends you find yourself you need to learn from them and gradually become almost like them you did mention something about population India and Nigeria in fact Nigeria is the most populous black country in the world India also has its own population which is a lot more than Nigeria but you seem to have things working for you in some ways what are those max lessons you think Nigeria could learn from India and not be afraid of the population because you have a population of like times five or more of us but we are still you know fidgeting afraid that the population might be too much but it's working for you what are the lessons that we need to learn from India to utilize or capitalize on the kind of population which also translates to manpower by the way to succeed correct see education is very important we need to stress a lot on education you see you have got a lot of youth population and they are looking for some opportunities you also have to look into that what are the services the globe requires that might be in the cyber or in the IT industry which needs to be developed the one of the major part which India's growth is taking place of course internally things are happening is that education where India is really moving fast and then they are providing services to the global platforms that has developed in the last 30 or 40 years which is now giving dividends that is one of the reasons that foreign remittance from the Indian diaspora is returning in a big way I think India is number one country receiving those type of amount of money if education is there and some opportunities the way relationships are to be built between country to country I think that gives a lot of chance for the rest of the country to develop then automatically the manufacturing sector can really go up right now we cannot you cannot do competitions with countries who are already producing so much of manufacturing I mean industries like China, Vietnam even India cannot compete in those type of things but they have started providing services to all those industrial as well as to the intellectual software development issues so that I personally feel is one of the major issues which Nigeria needs to work on and that is IT information technology solar energy as well as on cyber threats which are coming up because artificial intelligence and other things have literally come under now more or less in the IT knowledge which is there so that's how this is how things are changing and this is where Nigerian youth or educational system needs to adopt that and that's one place where India and Nigeria can build up relations more MOUs between different universities now we have specific we have started in India for the last few years you know specific universities for example on forensic universities are coming up there only forensic is being taught similarly the cyber issues are being taught in different in IITs which are there artificial intelligence is really moving up solar energy university is coming up so those type of new issues which we see that which are the future calling are the subjects we don't have to now beat the same old subjects which are there which we have been following which I call it as colonial syllabus of our education you finally have to change slowly and adopt your own issues which are there if you stress more education the rest of the doors will automatically open oh beror thank you so much for your time we know that you had so many things planned for today but you've given us this time we are really grateful thank you for coming on the thank you very much it's my pleasure to be there and looking forward to interact more with you in future thank you and nice meeting you well very interesting when I asked him the question about what Nigeria could learn from India because we have the greatest population in black Africa and they have about the greatest population in the world you know and and he said a very key thing is education and now Asu is declaring some days to go lecture free again because they are being paid half salary and even education is going down and things like this are still happening I just wonder why but well before you respond Bio has been there all along we didn't even say hello we didn't say welcome but he is there and he always has a back bio welcome to the program sorry that we didn't say this earlier good morning good morning I'm very happy we go to India and it was nice listening to him he's very knowledgeable on a lot of things you know and he has a passion for expanding the frontiers of relationship between Asia and Africa as you can see there from what you said yeah but like he ended when when he was being asked what Nigeria could learn and he hopped on education and not just education generally but special type of education a different kind of education not necessarily what we have been learning before now talking about zeroing in on technology AI technology and so many other things that we didn't have in the past and all that and in Nigeria I was just talking with Uche right now that the lecturers are declaring days to go back and do lecture free lecture free days because they are being paid half salary and I'm just I'm just wondering when can we get it right in the educational system in Nigeria you see Uche and Yango yes is correct India is one country deal I lived in India for four years I was supposed to be there in my former life for four years how many lives do you have I saw a lot of things I was in many cities in India so many places and I can attest to what he's saying he's absolutely correct but for me this goes beyond ASU you know if you pardon me and I say this without sense of responsibility to a significant extent ASU is a solution but also to some extent ASU is a problem right the those who set up educational institutions in Nigeria to some extent they are providing a solution to another extent it is a problem why do I say this we are emphasizing the same approach to education we've always had there is no private highly regarded private private polytechnic in Nigeria we are even killing polytechnics the strength of Asia is in polytechnics and then you have universities that are specialized some years ago I was telling a friend of mine when Kogi State was going to establish a university I said Kogi State has the largest iron ore deposits in Africa that's an Itakbe okay and Ajauputa I said Kogi State should establish a university of materials and metallurgical engineering it immediately becomes a center of excellence it focuses on harnessing Ajauputa steel industry it focuses on exploiting the iron ore reserves in Itakbe and Ajauputa okay but who is listening you know then you set up a university to do history to do English to do philosophy I mean I'm not against that but if we really want to move we need to be thinking with due respect like what Surinda was saying our missionaries whether it's the Christian missionaries or the Muslim missionaries they are also establishing the same type of universities who is establishing a university of medical sciences maybe only on those states today and we have a university of education only in open state look how long the two cost to establish a university of education we need to be going into the specialized areas IT is the easiest and we have seen what Nigerians can do unfortunately some of it is negative okay you have this minority Nigerians who are doing negative things with their IT skills why don't we harness these boys white uncles and set up universities for IT and begin to write software in no time like I can tell you Nigeria can even overtake India and India is willing to even exchange with Nigeria on these things okay India has gone so far I'm stretching it we might not overtake India but we can be the dominant contributor from Africa to the global IT space so I'm passionate when I talk about the states because I lived in Asia for five years and I saw a lot of things and honestly I don't think there's anything Asia is doing today that Nigeria cannot do we are just not approaching things the right way and this is not just government because everybody in Nigeria likes to point fingers at the government the government has its own share of the blame but the private sector what are they doing I just gave you the example of missionaries you name all the universities owned by Christians and Muslims in Nigeria how many of them are specialized universities how many of them are even ranked on the webometric ranking I've been tracking the webometric ranking for the past eight nine years the best universities in Nigeria are still federal universities despite all the challenges where is Babcock University which is the first missionary university established in Nigeria where is Igbenedio University which is the first private university established in Nigeria three years ago covenant university significantly achieved something great they broke into that round to become the first missionary university in Nigeria to rub shoulders with the federal universities on the global webometric ranking this is not a ranking done by Nigeria it's global webometric ranking but where are the others they charge so much money as movies they have the same structure as the federal system we are criticizing the visitor is the head of the missionary institution they're not thinking of holding these universities from outside of the missionary structure so in a matter of time we will still come back to the same issues as we're talking about because we are not changing the structure we're all for it right but then I wanted to ask this question who is to blame or maybe who is to blame is not the word like where is this confusion or worry coming from why I say that is we were having a conversation one of our guests the other day and you know the conversation degenerated of course to education again and he was mentioning how that the university has everything it takes to actually change the course of the education sector in Nigeria he according to him the universities have everything they have thinkers they have they have psychologists they have engineers they have lawyers and these people have all it takes they can come together and actually build the system that they want and you know one of the questions we asked him that day is do they have what it takes to take these decisions independently by themselves because I'm also talking stemming up from what she said about the private sector we have young persons I started learning web designing by the way my classes started yesterday and that is in tech and these are the things that we're talking about there are lots of the person teaching me was self-thought he has sought for opportunities for support for funding and none of them is coming and this this is a young person he is barely in his 30s and I'm sure there are a million and more other people like him out there he has what he takes I mean he I'm not the only person he's teaching he's teaching a lot of other people and these are people that can actually do these things if the universities are allowed and that brings me to my question do they need a special legislation to be able to take these decisions and do make the changes that are required or is it also a cup at hand going to the federal government to beg okay this is what we want to do can we be allowed that's my question okay thanks a lot for that I don't entirely agree with him you know that the universities have only takes and we are not going I do not have enough time to elaborate but let me just give you a quick examples if you if you are looking for an autism and Professor Patutomi has actually spoken extensively on this particular issue if you are looking for an autism to do it technical to fix something in your house you see the quality of partisanship we have today has terribly degenerated okay and it's simply because we kill the technical colleges and we kill the polytechnics the chief executive officer Google is a graduate of the IIT a new daily in surrender vision IIT that it means Indian Institute of Technology the Indian Institute of Technologies are like the other tech how cheap polytechnic polytechnic is bad on caliber polytechnic of those days they are like that but they are well structured they are integrated with the private sector they are the driving force in Asia it's the polytechnics it is not the universities the universities bring cutting edge and that's what he was talking about when he talked about specialized universities you you have the regular universities who produce administrative people for you managers policy makers decision makers the civil and they will feed the civil service bureaucracy and then you have the cutting edge universities specializing in critical areas you know so I feel that the universities as they currently exist they have the latitude to introduce new courses the federal government is not stopping them they just have to get their accreditation from the appropriate agencies right secondly we need to go and revive and strengthen polytechnics thirdly we need to go back and rebuild our primary schools the missionaries took back some secondary schools they did not take back their primary schools the primary school is where you build the foundation nobody's interested in the primary school everybody's interested in setting up universities and we are not getting it right that's why I say that all of us in Nigeria we have our own share of the blame for me this is not just about the government we all have our own share of the blame we are all not playing our role appropriately if we begin to play our role appropriately we'll begin to see changes happen positively conversation about education is almost never going to be exhausted we need to like marble an entire by the way if I just add quickly that's why it's difficult to sanction India with this because we started off talking about the G20 and for us the concern about the G20 and the and what the president we do though is trying to facilitate you know this meeting between Russia and the US in the sidelines of the meeting currently that's held in Bali it simply because this war in Ukraine has disrupted global food supplies and Europe here especially is badly eaten but we have 11 countries in Africa that are also terribly eaten now India is playing a mediatory role to try to also facilitate peace but some European countries may not be happy with India but they cannot sanction India because India is helping them solve all their IT problems so imagine that the strength that has translated into what you call soft power in diplomacy for India it has built its IT industry that IT industry is giving Indian money contributing to its GDP but has also enhanced India's soft power and Nigeria can easily dominate diversity easily okay and that can also enhance our economy and our soft power but it's not only going to be the government by by a wits wits uh any woman will say jaybreak jay right very well all right jay why jay why oh whatever it is i know like Uche said for us to end anything education it would be difficult especially the Nigerian system that we are seeing i think like Uche suggested or said it's a good idea that we could dedicate a week and be taking aspects of education that we will be talking about i felt insulted i felt ashamed when uh the man was saying that they have only 2000 or they're about no uh Nigerians in India studying and i've talked i felt how many Indians do we have in Nigeria that are also studying and he felt 2000 was not a great number so we are running there and they're expecting us to keep running there more than 2000 maybe we should be like seven thousand ten thousand and all that and then we are not doing anything to make sure that we have that kind of educational tourism as well in this country we will really need to talk more about this thing yeah we will we'll get an opportunity to continue the conversation on the g20