The Mauritanian Prime Minister’s Agenda: Luxury at the Top, Misery at the Bottom

By : Mohamed Abdrahman Abdallah
Journalist , Nouakchott

In Mauritania, when the name “Ould Ajay’s government” is mentioned, what comes to the mind of the average citizen is a vivid image of extravagance at the top and tragedy at the bottom. A government that chose to live in its own bubble, far from the pulse of the street, deaf to the noise of unemployment, blind to the wounds of poverty, and indifferent to the cries of thousands of families waiting for a window of mercy from the sky — after the government shut every door of hope.

At the top of the pyramid, in air-conditioned offices, luxury vehicles, and lavish banquets, crises are nothing but figures in reports or wooden phrases uttered in press conferences — phrases that reveal nothing but ignorance of people’s suffering. Billions are spent on “meetings,” “workshops,” and “official visits,” while education and health workers are forced to strike for meager wages that barely last a week.

The Ould Ajay government constructed a bizarre governance model: luxury for the entourage, austerity for the people. During its tenure, signs of obscene wealth multiplied within the political elite, while the poor slipped further into the grip of hunger, and the middle class disintegrated under the weight of taxes and the absence of opportunities for a dignified life.

Have you ever heard of a billion ouguiyas allocated to restore a crumbling school in a poor neighborhood of Nouakchott?
Yet we often hear of billions spent on banquets, decorating offices, and furnishing workspaces for a new minister who brings nothing new.

Down below, the citizen stands at the doors of hospitals waiting for a bed, or chases a signature through bureaucratic windows, or queues for water, bread, and electricity… and no one hears them.
Down below, garbage piles up in neighborhoods, schools rot away, and entire districts go dark under the pretext of a “technical issue.”
Down below, the citizen is treated as just a number — or an expendable one.

Meanwhile, at the top, power lounges in reception halls and dines on caviar, forgetting that politics is not a luxury — but a moral duty and national responsibility.
The Ould Ajay government mastered the game of misleading statistics, hiding crises behind inflated growth rates and oversized budgets. Yet it failed to feed the hungry, save the sick, or educate the children.

Such policies have produced a grim reality — a deep disconnect between the state and its people, turning Mauritania into a country of two classes:

An upper class that drains the nation’s remaining resources,
And a lower class that bleeds its dignity, day after day.

Is there no one in this nation who can stop this absurdity?
Isn’t it time for the luxury to come down a little — and for the pain to be heard at the top?

When a government no longer serves its people, it becomes a burden on them.
When state institutions turn into tools of vanity and polish, ruin becomes inevitable — not just possible.

So, who will fix what was destroyed by a government that invested in glamour and buried the poor under the rubble of neglect?
Who will restore Mauritania’s true face, where the human being comes first — not the motorcade, nor the feast?