Border closure will worsen economy —Ex-CBN official

A former Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr. Titus Okunrounmu, has warned that the continued closure of the country’s borders would exacerbate the stagnation of the economy.

Okunrounmu, who served as director in CBN’s Budgetary Department, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Ota, Ogun State, that the closure would stifle the nation’s economic growth.

NAN reports that the Federal Government had, on August 19, shut down the country’s land and sea borders as a proactive measure in checking cases of insecurity in the country.

Okunrounmu said shutting down of borders will further complicate economic challenges as the nation is still importing a lot of goods into the country.

“Closing the nation’s borders is not the solution to our economic under development,” he said.

Okunrounmu explained that the economy will continue to be stagnant because the smugglers would find alternative means of bringing their goods into the country and warned that the trend would negatively affect revenue generation.

“The nation is missing a lot of revenues on a daily basis to the smugglers because of the closure of the borders, ” he said.

He urged the Federal Government to take steps to develop the economy by looking inwards to proffer solutions to the immediate problems affecting the economy.

Okunrounmu said that for such policy to effectively work, the nation will have to be self sustaining in the provision of domestic goods.

(NAN)