Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has criticised the excessive security around President Bola Tinubu’s family, saying it shows misplaced priorities in Nigeria’s security system.
Speaking at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) Awards in Lagos on Tuesday, Soyinka described seeing a striking number of armed guards around the president’s son, Seyi Tinubu, while at a hotel in Ikoyi.
“I was coming out of my hotel, and I saw what looked like a film set, and I said, oh, they are shooting a film on the ground of the hotel,” he recalled.
“And a young man detached himself from the actors, came over and greeted me very politely. A very nice young man. And I said, ‘are you shooting somebody?’
“I said, ‘I’m just joking. Are you shooting a film?’ I looked around, and there was nearly a whole battalion occupying the grounds of the hotel in Ikoyi.”
Soyinka said he later learned that young man was Seyi Tinubu, and accompanied by around 15 heavily armed security officers, enough to take over a small city.
Shocked, he tried to contact the national security adviser to confirm if the deployment was necessary.
“So, when I got back in my car, and I asked the driver who that young man was, and he told me, and I saw this SWAT team, a mixture; they were heavily armed, at least some 15 or so heavily armed to the teeth security personnel looked sufficient to take over a small country neighbouring city like Benin.”
“I was so astonished that I started looking for the national security adviser. I said, ‘track him down for me’. I think they got him somewhere in Paris. But he was with the president; he was in a meeting.
“Then, I said I’ve just seen something I can’t believe I don’t understand, and I described the scene to him. I said, ‘do you mean that a child of the head of state goes around with an army for his protection or whatever?’
“I couldn’t believe it. Later on, I did some investigative journalism, and I found that apparently this is how this young man goes around with his battalion, his heavily armed soldiers.”
He added that such a security setup could easily deal with unrest in nearby countries like the Benin Republic.
“Tinubu didn’t have to send the air force and the military to deal with this particular insurrection, this threat to our own sense of security and equilibrium. No. There is an easier way to do it,” Soyinka said.
“Let me tell you where Tinubu should look for forces to quell that insurrection. Right here, in Lagos, or in Abuja, perhaps.
“And I think next time there’s an insurrection, I think the president should just call that young man and say, ‘Seyi, go and put down those stupid people there. You have troops under your command’”.
The playwright emphasised that while leaders have families, this privilege shouldn’t be abused.
He said, “This is not the first country whose head of state has a family. Children should know their place. They are not potentates; they are not heads of state.
“The security architecture of a nation suffers when we see such heavy devotion of security to one young individual.”
KanyiDaily recalls that Wole Soyinka recently labeled US President Donald Trump a “petty-minded dictator,” criticizing how his administration treated minorities and the rise in extrajudicial killings during his tenure.
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