Security Guarding Seyi Tinubu Is Enough To Crush Benin Republic Uprising – Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka

Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has blasted what he described as the excessive deployment of security operatives around the family of President Bola Tinubu. He recently warned that such overreach undermines Nigeria’s security priorities, and Nigerians have been reacting.

Speaking at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) Awards in Lagos on Tuesday, the literary icon recounted his recent encounter with what he termed a “battalion-level” security detail attached to the president’s son at a hotel in Ikoyi.

According to him, he actually assumed a film was being shot on the hotel premises due to the sheer number of heavily armed personnel he saw with Seyi Tinubu.

Soyinka added that he was so disturbed that he attempted to reach the National Security Adviser (NSA) to verify whether the deployment was official.

His words, “I was coming out of my hotel, and I saw what looked like a film set. A young man detached himself from the actors, came over and greeted me politely. When I asked if they were shooting a film, he said no. I looked around and there was nearly a whole battalion occupying the hotel grounds.

When I got back in my car and asked the driver who the young man was, he told me. And I saw this SWAT team, heavily armed to the teeth. They looked sufficient to take over a neighbouring small country or city like Benin.

I began looking for the NSA immediately. I said, track him down for me. They got him somewhere in Paris, but he was in a meeting with the president. I described the scene and asked: ‘Do you mean a child of the head of state goes around with an army for his protection?’ I couldn’t believe it.

Tinubu didn’t have to send the air force or military to deal with any insurrection. There is an easier way.

Next time there’s an uprising, the president should call that young man and say, ‘Seyi, go and put down those stupid people there. You have troops under your command.’

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.”

WOW.