Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has condemned the heavy security detail surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s family, saying it distorts Nigeria’s national security priorities.
At the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism Awards in Lagos on Tuesday, Soyinka recounted a recent encounter at an Ikoyi hotel, where he came across what he called a “battalion-level” security team assigned to the president’s son.
“I thought a film was being shot,” he said. “But there were about 15 heavily armed officers occupying the hotel grounds. They looked capable of taking over a neighbouring city like Benin.”
Alarmed, Soyinka tried contacting the National Security Adviser to verify the deployment but learned the president was in a meeting. “Do you mean a child of the head of state goes around with an army for his protection? I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
Soyinka argued that such deployments undermine broader security priorities, joking that the president could rely on the son’s forces instead of deploying the military or air force.
He warned: “Children should know their place. They are not potentates. The security architecture suffers when such devotion is given to one young individual.”
