Your Excellencies,
On this first day of September 2025, I am compelled to write because it has become painfully clear that a widening gap exists between Your Excellencies and the very citizens you were elected to serve. This is not a letter of courtesy; it is a letter of conscience.
For too long, the soul of state governance in Nigeria has been under siege—not by foreign powers or economic headwinds alone, but by those entrusted to lead it. From the creeks of the Niger Delta to the savannahs of the North, from the commercial nerve centres in the West to the far-flung communities of the East, the cry is the same: a failure of leadership at the subnational level.
Kindly let me be clear: this is no appeal, and I am not begging for mercy on behalf of the Nigerians who graciously elected you into office. I am placing a demand on you.
The citizens of this country are not your subordinates. You are not monarchs; you are employees of the people. The Constitution does not crown you; it contracts you. And like every employer, the people reserve the right to terminate a failed contract.
Every month, the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disburses hundreds of billions of naira to your states—resources so substantial that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu himself has repeatedly charged you to “justify these funds and deliver the dividends of democracy.”
Yet what do we see?
- White-elephant projects launched with fanfare, abandoned in silence.
- Nepotism and cronyism choking competence.
- Corruption scandals buried under political convenience.
- Human rights violations ignored, with citizens treated as irritants rather than stakeholders.
- A widening gulf between government houses and the governed, as though elections confer the right to govern without listening.
Your Excellencies, this is man’s inhumanity to man playing out in real time. Governance is not a favour you bestow upon the people; it is a duty you swore to uphold. The resources you control belong not to you, your political parties, or your inner circles. They belong to the teachers waiting months for salaries, the pensioners dying in penury, the children learning under leaking roofs, the unemployed youth drowning in hopelessness. When you misappropriate the resources, it is theft, it is robbery, it is looting. This is the real 419. And if—I repeat, IF—you have been misappropriating state resources, that is a crime.
Enough is enough.
Let this be crystal clear:
The era of impunity is ending.
The culture of excuses is collapsing.
The citizens are awake, alert, and angry.
The word on the street is unmistakable: 2027 will be like no other election in Nigeria’s history.
The mask is off. The die is cast. Perform—or be flushed out, you and your party together.
As the Yoruba wisely say, “Ọba tí kò gbọ́ ìmọ̀ràn yóò ṣubú pẹ̀lú àga rè” — A ruler who ignores wise counsel will fall with his throne.
Because power is transient. But the judgment of history is permanent.
Yours sincerely,
Henry Balogun
Lawyer | Social & Political Commentator | Publisher, HB Report
For and on behalf of the citizens of your state.
