Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Walid Jibrin, said the partial closure of Nigeria’s land borders by President Muhammadu Buhari was a blessing to the ailing textile industry.
Jibrin spoke in his capacity as the new Life Patron of the Nigeria Textiles Manufacturers Association.
The Sarkin Fulani Nasarawa has put in over 45 years in the textile industry.
The Second Republic senator told journalists in Kaduna that the border closure had reduced the rate of smuggling of textile fabrics into the country.
This, he said, was a plus for the Buhari regime aimed at the revival of the ailing textile industry.
Jibrin, who identified smuggling as one of the major challenges militating against the industry, noted that the textile sector of the economy gladly welcomed the border closure by the Federal Government.
Aside from smuggling, he said the textile industry was in dire need of adequate electricity supply to revive the sector which once boosted the nation’s economy.
He also expressed regret that the industry that could once boast of employing over 300,000 with 175 textile firms across the country, now employed less than 30,000 with 30 textile firms across the country.