Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has criticised what he described as the excessive security escort attached to Seyi Tinubu, the son of President Bola Tinubu, warning that such deployment reflects poor national security priorities.
Soyinka spoke on Tuesday in Lagos at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism Awards, where he narrated a recent experience at a hotel in Ikoyi that left him alarmed by what he termed an extravagant display of state security around a young individual close to the Presidency.
He said he encountered a large battalion of heavily armed operatives guarding the person, an arrangement he described as “sufficient to take over a small country.”
“I was so astonished that I started looking for the National Security Adviser,” Soyinka said. “I wanted to know whether it means that a child of the Head of State now goes around with an army for his protection.”
According to him, after making further inquiries, he discovered that the individual was Seyi Tinubu.
“I later did some investigative journalism and found that apparently this is how this young man goes around with his battalion of soldiers. I could not believe it,” he added.
Soyinka warned that children of public office holders must understand their place in a democratic system.
“They are not elected leaders and must not inherit the architecture of state power simply by proximity,” he stated.
He urged the President to reconsider the scale of security attached to his son, stressing that Nigeria is battling kidnappings, insurgency, rural attacks and criminal violence.
“With the insecurity in the country, these resources are urgently needed elsewhere,” he said.
A video of Soyinka’s remarks later went viral on social media on Tuesday night.
