Despite the distasteful memory of the military era in the nation’s history, a former Minister of Works, Adeseye Ogunlewe on Monday said army constructed more and better roads than civilian government has been able to.
Mr Ogunlewe, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, said this absurdity and the plethora of bad roads in the country is the price the nation has to pay for its ‘expensive democracy’.
“The military built more roads in Nigeria than democracy because they (military) could fund infrastructural development. There were no national assembly, unlike the democracy where 71 per cent of the budget goes to salaries of national assembly members and tonnes of aides,” the former Minister said.
Criticizing the nation’s system of government, Mr Ogunlewe said: “the presidential system of government is not good for developing country because it is too expensive and at the expense of the much needed infrastructural development.
“Our system of government is too pro-salary.
“We use our commonwealth which is resources from crude oil to pay salaries of just about 1 million people” he added.
According to him, the nation’s constitution is also ‘not careful’ “by saying that all revenue must go to the Consolidated Revenue Fund and be shared.”
“Section 80 of the Constitution which demands that all revenue must go the Consolidated Revenue Fund is the cause of this problem.”
He therefore joined the call for a national conference “sovereign or not” to determine the system of government that Nigerians want.
Mr Ogunlewe also suggested that the government should engage the Nigerian Military Engineers in revamping the nation’s infrastructure.
“We must involve the military Engineers in the building of our infrastructure-as it is done abroad-because they are very efficient and competent.”
