Professor Wole Soyinka has expressed serious misgivings on what he described as “heavy armed soldiers” guarding the son of President Bola Tinubu, Seyi.
He said when he discovered it, he was concerned and had to reach out to the National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu.
The Nobel laureate said this at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism Awards in Lagos on Tuesday.
“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 said.
“I was astonished,” Soyinka said, adding that “children must understand their place. They are not elected leaders, and they must not inherit the architecture of state power simply by proximity.”
Soyinka cautioned Tinubu to be cautious on how he handles regional security, domestic governance, and the use of state protection for privileged individuals.
He recalled an encounter in his hotel room in Ikoyi, Lagos State, saying he was shocked at what he considered an extravagant display of state security.
According to him, what he saw was “an excessively large security battalion assigned to a young individual close to the Presidency,” an entourage he said was “sufficient to take over a small country.”
Soyinka revealed that the young man turned out to be Seyi Tinubu, the President’s son.
Soyinka advised Tinubu to tone down the large security personnel attached to Seyi, adding that such resources are urgently needed elsewhere.
He humorously observed that if a major insurgency were to break out, perhaps the President should ask Seyi to “go and handle it,” given the size of his escort — but added that “beyond the humour lies a serious matter of priority and fairness.”
According to him, deploying a battalion of operatives around an individual is inconsistent with a nation battling kidnappings, rural attacks, insurgency and criminal violence, insisting that security deployments must reflect national realities, not privilege.
