WHAT IF WE HAD LISTENED?

Three years after 25 open letters warned President Tinubu about Nigeria's fault lines, many of the problems they identified remain unresolved

By Okwo romeon Editor-in-Chief, Nigeria Anchorage
For the Nigeria @65 Independence Special

Three years ago, as Bola Ahmed Tinubu settled into the Presidency, a Nigerian citizen placed an unusually detailed challenge before the new administration: 25 open letters outlining what he believed Nigeria needed to change.

The letters covered military barracks in city centres, youth unemployment, an education system obsessed with certificates, corruption, domestic workers' rights, food security, border policy, national security and Nigeria's leadership role in Africa.

There was no public response from the Presidency.

The book.

Today, as Nigeria marks 65 years of independence, many of the issues raised in those letters remain at the centre of the country's national debate — and some have become more urgent.

Ahmed Bola Ahmed (GCFR)
Nigeria President 

The author, Ladan M. Danladan, does not claim to have predicted Nigeria's future. His argument is more uncomfortable: the warnings were already visible.

Written only three months after Tinubu assumed office on 29 May 2023, the letters were assembled into a booklet titled The 25. Danladan, national president of the Domestic Workers Association of Nigeria (DOWAN), presented them not as an indictment of a new administration but as a citizen's attempt to put ideas on the table before familiar national problems became harder to solve.

Three years later, the unanswered letters have acquired a second life.

They can now be read as a test of something larger than one presidency: whether Nigeria listens to citizens who offer solutions before crises become emergencies.

“A citizen's duty is to speak, a leader's duty is to listen,” Danladan says.

He insists he is not angry that the Presidency did not respond.

“I am a Nigerian,” he says. “My book is now in the library of history.”

But history has a habit of reopening old letters.

And at 65, Nigeria is being forced to confront several of the same questions Danladan placed before the President in 2023.

Mr Ladan Dalaladi
Author and Writer 

Twenty-five letters, one national warning

Why 25?

“Because Nigeria's problems are not one,” Danladan says. “One letter would be a complaint. Twenty-five is a government programme.”

That distinction is at the heart of The 25. Rather than concentrate on one grievance, Danladan attempted to sketch an alternative policy agenda across leadership, education, infrastructure, agriculture, security, labour, urban development and foreign policy.

The booklet was dedicated to two Nigerians he regards as voices for ordinary citizens: Dr Ahmed Isah of Brekete Family Human Rights Radio and Senator Oluremi Tinubu.

For Danladan, the pairing was symbolic — a bridge between grassroots activism and the Presidency.

The result is an unusual political document: part open letter, part policy proposal, part citizen's intervention.

Its relevance today lies not in whether every proposal was right, but in the fact that many of the questions it raised have refused to disappear.