The government of India is seeking to resume crude oil purchases from Nigeria as both countries move to rebuild bilateral trade towards its previous peak of nearly $15 billion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the request during a bilateral meeting with Vice-President Kashim Shettima on the sidelines of the just-concluded BRICS leaders’ summit in New Delhi.
According to a statement on Monday by Stanley Nkwocha, senior special assistant on media and communications to Shettima, Nigeria and India also agreed to deepen their strategic economic relationship.
Speaking during the meeting, Modi called for renewed crude purchases from Nigeria, saying stronger energy trade could help restore commercial exchanges between the two countries to previous levels.
The Indian prime minister also expressed appreciation for Nigeria’s hospitality towards the “sizeable” Indian community living and doing business in the country.
Responding, Shettima said Nigeria would consider the request as part of broader efforts by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to attract investment and build strategic partnerships that can expand the country’s productive capacity.
He identified pharmaceuticals, defence, digital technology, and the creative industries as areas of particular interest to Nigeria.
Shettima said partnerships should create jobs, facilitate skills transfer, and open opportunities for the country’s large youth population.
“The President Tinubu administration is particularly interested in moving Nigeria’s relationship with India beyond the traditional exchange of commodities towards investments that support domestic production and value addition,” Shettima said.
He said Tinubu’s objective is to ensure that international partnerships translate into investment, technology transfer, industrial growth, and tangible economic opportunities for Nigerians.
Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, minister of women’s affairs, said Nigeria is drawing lessons from India’s women-led self-help group model to strengthen financial inclusion and grassroots enterprise.
She said the approach is being adopted through the Nigeria for women programme scale-up, using women affinity groups to connect women to finance, skills, and markets.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim said the programme forms part of the federal government’s wider drive to expand women’s participation in productive economic activity, while strengthening social protection and interventions against sexual and gender-based violence.
“Women’s economic empowerment is fundamental to our ambition of building a $1 trillion economy. We must deliberately bring millions more Nigerian women into productive economic activity,” the minister added.
Abhishek Singh, Indian high commissioner to Nigeria, said bilateral trade between both countries stood at “about $14.95 billion in the 2021- 2022 financial year before declining largely as a result of reduced Indian purchases of Nigerian crude”.
He said it dropped “to $7.13 billion in 2024–2025 but recovered to about $9 billion in 2025–2026”.
