Soyinka: Tinubu Didn’t Need Air Force — Seyi’s Security Was Enough

 

Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has condemned what he described as an excessive and unnecessary security cordon around President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s son, Seyi Tinubu.

Speaking on Tuesday at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) Awards in Lagos, Soyinka recounted his shock after witnessing an unusually large contingent of heavily armed operatives stationed around Seyi Tinubu at a hotel in Ikoyi.

“I was coming out of my hotel and saw what looked like a film set,” he said. “No, it was almost a whole battalion occupying the hotel grounds. About fifteen heavily armed personnel, enough to take over a small neighbouring city like Benin.”

Soyinka said he immediately contacted the National Security Adviser to verify whether such a deployment was warranted.

“I asked, ‘Do you mean the child of the Head of State moves around with an army for personal protection?’” He noted that his checks confirmed that this level of security has become the standard arrangement for the president’s son.

With his trademark wit, Soyinka quipped that the same security detail could confront threats abroad. “Tinubu didn’t need to send the Air Force and the military,” he joked. “He could just call that young man and say, ‘Seyi, go and put down those stupid people there, you already have troops under your command.’”

Soyinka cautioned that while leaders naturally have families, national security should not be distorted in their favour.

“Children should know their place,” he warned. “They are not potentates, they are not heads of state. The security architecture of a nation becomes compromised when such a heavy allocation of personnel is devoted to one yo

ung individual.”