By Bello Abdullahi
The Kebbi State Government recently bought an 6-seater luxury golf cart. In a state where children forget the taste of eggs. In a state where roads have become graveyards. In a state where the only thing moving fast is poverty.
But no. Let us not be harsh. Perhaps the cart is for emergency services? No. Perhaps it is for transporting patients? No. Perhaps it is to help the governor visit flooded villages? Don’t be silly. It is for leisure. For cruising the Government House environs or even the golf course. While outside the gate, people are cruising from one hunger to another.
This is not governance. This is a sitcom.
Defenders will say: “Every government buys vehicles.” True. But not every government buys a toy while their people are dying. There is a difference between a utility vehicle and a luxury cart. The difference is called shame. And shame, in Kebbi, appears to be in short supply.
Politics is not just about spending money. It is about reading the room. And the room is on fire. But the governor is too busy polishing his golf cart to notice.
Let me say it plainly: Feudal politics in Kebbi: comfort at the top, anger at the bottom. That is not a slogan. That is a coroner’s report on public trust.
Even medieval kings knew when to hide their gold. When famine came, they wore rags, publicly. Why? Because they understood performative modesty. Our own elite have graduated beyond such peasant concerns. Why pretend to suffer when you can simply stop pretending to care? It is called efficiency. Modern governance.
The golf cart is not the problem. The golf cart is a symptom. The disease is a ruling class that has seceded emotionally from the republic. They no longer feel what the people feel. They no longer want to feel it.
To the hungry citizen, that luxury cart is not a vehicle. It is a slap. A middle finger on wheels. And the message is clear: We are not like you. We will never be like you. And we are tired of pretending.
Luxury at the villa. Suffering in the villages. That is the equation. And the people are solving it every day.
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A government can survive incompetence. What it cannot survive is contempt. When the governed realize that their leaders no longer even pretend to understand their pain, the social contract dies. Quietly. Irreversibly.
So enjoy the golf cart, Your Excellency. Enjoy the smooth electric ride around the villa. But remember: outside those gates, the people are watching. And they have long memories.
And when the reckoning comes, as it always does, that 6-seater will not carry you far enough.
Abdullahi, a writer, under the #GaskiyaAlliance platform writes from Kaduna.
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