On March 13, 2009, Mr. Justin Yifu Lin, a Chinese, who is the Chief Economist and Vice President of the World Bank, delivered the 24th Export-Import (Exim) Bank of India Commencement Day Annual Lecture in Mumbai.

The lecture titled "Beyond Keynesian Economics: A Stimulus For Development," was given to us (ten African journalists) on April 27 when we visited the bank's headquarters at the World Trade Centre Complex in Mumbai.

What fascinated me is the progress India has made in the last two decades as recounted by Lin. He recalled that he visited India for the first time in 1988 when he attended the inauguration conference of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research in Mumbai.

"During that visit in the late 1980's, I had the impression that Indian policymakers and economists were quite pessimistic about the possibility of carrying out fundamental changes and surpassing the prevailing growth rate of about three percent per annum, which they referred to as the Hindi rate of growth," he said.

Two decades after, Lin observed: "The Indian economy has been growing at a rate of about six to eight percent over the past two decades, GDP more than tripled since 1988, GDP per capita more than doubled, and the share of trade increased from 14 percent of GDP in 1988 to 46 percent. Some Indian entrepreneurs and companies are taking centre stage on global markets, for instance, Tata motors recently bought land Rover and Jaguar from Ford.

"These impressive economic achievements are reflected in improvements in living conditions across India. At the time of my first visit, about 54 percent of India's population lived on less than $1.25 a day. The decline in the poverty rate has been remarkable since, and less than 42 percent of Indians live on $1.25 today. Important headway has also been made on education and health. Net primary school enrollment increased to almost 90 percent, 89 percent of the population now have access to improved water sources, and infant mortality per 100,000 life births almost halved since 1988."

With my country, Nigeria, on my mind, I asked David Sinate, General Manager of the Exim Bank, how much of this development could be attributed to the vision and sincerity of purpose of India's political leadership. Without equivocation, he said 100 percent. "I must say that we have been blessed with visionary and exemplary leadership in India. It does not matter what party is in power. Whichever government sits in Delhi, the most important issue is economic development and whatever India has achieved as a country is thanks to our politicians."

Nigeria concentrated my mind because two days earlier, the Ekiti governorship re-run poll was held and the vibes I was getting, as usual, were unsavoury.

To say that India has made tremendous progress in the past two decades is to state the obvious. All you need to convince yourself is a visit to a few industries. For instance, we were at the Patalganga plant (one of the 30 state-of-the-art manufacturing plants) of the pharmaceutical giant, Cipla Ltd. Established in 1935 with a "vision to make India self sufficient in medicines," Cipla is today the second largest pharmaceutical company in India, manufacturing an extensive range of over 150 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API's) and 1200 finished formulations, including Antiretrovirals, Antiasthmatics, Anti-cancer drugs, Antimalarials, Cardiovascular drugs and Anti-bacterials. With a market capitalization of more than $3.5 billion and with its products sold in over 172 countries, Cipla's turnover for the fiscal year April 2007 - March 2008 was in excess of $1 billion.

When Mahatma Gandhi, father of modern India, visited the company on July 4, 1939, he called it an "Indian enterprise." A tour of the Patalganga plant, guided by the unit head, Anil Kumar Kartha, confirmed Gandhi's assertion. All the 400 staff are Indians. Most, if not all the sophisticated machines used in production were manufactured in Indian.

We left Patalganga for Mumbai where we visited the Tata International Limited, India's largest business group, with 98 companies, founded 114 years ago. Today, Tata is reputed to have produced the world's smallest and cheapest car (NANO) which is to go on sale anytime from now. India is not an oil-producing country, per se, yet it is one of the countries with the highest refining capacity in the world. It imports crude oil from countries like Nigeria and Venezuela, adds value to the raw material by refining before exporting. By so doing, it earns, perhaps, as much money as Nigeria earns from crude oil. Sinate said India is the highest exporter of refined petroleum products to Colombia, Venezuela's Latin American neighbour. When I asked the quantity of refined petroleum products India exports to Nigeria and what the balance of trade between both countries looks like, he said he would get back to me. He didn't.

In the last 20 years, India, not encumbered by oil wealth knew it had to pull itself by the proverbial bootstraps. Blessed with visionary and selfless leaders, the country embraced the fundamentals of knowledge based economy, turning the cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad into the 21st Century Information Technology (IT) centres, revolutionizing its agriculture to feed its teeming population. India does not need oil wealth to survive.

Back at our Trident Hotel in Mumbai, I was engaged in an animated discussion with Ms Jayanti Narasimhan, the indefatigable Ministry of External Affairs staff who took us round India, and I asked why her country made so much progress in the last two decades and most African countries, particularly Nigeria, were on a sharp decline. She said the answer lies in education. "In the past 20 years, many African countries, including Nigeria, have been under-educating their people. The reverse is the case in India. We have achieved so much and with education in the last two decades and that is the strength of the country. People from all over the world now send their children to India for quality education. We have a workforce that is highly educated and that is almost 100 percent Indian. The second reason is the selflessness of the political leadership. Their commitment to the dream of a prosperous India is incredible."

I wished I could say that for Nigerian leaders.

Earlier, when the issue of India's population was raised at the Exim Bank headquarters, Sinate agreed that with a growth rate of two percent, the population of India which is over one billion is an issue. But he was quick to add that it may turn out a blessing sooner than later. How? He said the worry now is that with the rate of technological and industrial development, even with the huge population, the country may find out that in ten years time, it does not have enough manpower. So, it is aggressively investing in education so as to meet with its projected manpower needs a decade from now.

This is despite the fact that today India is globally acknowledged as a software power and leader in the knowledge-based economy, has one of the largest number of software engineers in the world and the third country (after U.S. and Japan) to have built a super computer indigenously. Today, an estimated 38 percent of doctors, 12 percent of scientists in the U.S. and 36 percent of NASA scientists are Indians. Also, an estimated 34 percent of Microsoft, 28 percent of IBM, 17 percent Intel Scientists and 13 percent of Xerox employees are Indians.

Today, India is the preferred destination of people with the most complicated of health problems. Patients get referrals from the best of American and European health institutions to India.

Where does that leave Nigeria and its Vision 20-2020? In a world where knowledge is the key driver of national economies, where is Nigeria without education? And how can our leaders address these issues when all they play is politics with little or no time for governance? Little wonder why we continue to plumb the depths of ignominy in the committee of nations?