LAGOS, Nigeriaa — Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s Nobel laureate and one of the country’s most prominent public intellectuals, has criticised what he described as an excessive deployment of security personnel around the family of President Bola Tinubu, warning that such practices reflect deeper flaws in Nigeria’s security architecture and national priorities.
Speaking on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism Awards in Lagos, Soyinka recounted a personal encounter that, he said, left him disturbed by the scale of armed protection attached to the president’s son during a recent visit to a hotel in Ikoyi, one of Lagos’s most affluent districts.
“I was coming out of my hotel, and I saw what looked like a film set, and I said, oh, they are shooting a film on the ground of the hotel,” he told the audience.
“And a young man detached himself from the actors, came over and greeted me very politely. A very nice young man. And I said, ‘are you shooting somebody?’
“I said, ‘I’m just joking. Are you shooting a film?’ I looked around, and there was nearly a whole battalion occupying the grounds of the hotel in Ikoyi.”
Soyinka said the magnitude of the armed presence only became clearer after he left the scene and spoke with his driver.
“So, when I got back in my car, and I asked the driver who that young man was, and he told me, and I saw this SWAT team, a mixture; they were heavily armed, at least some 15 or so heavily armed to the teeth security personnel looked sufficient to take over a small country neighbouring city like Benin.”
The writer said the sight was alarming enough for him to attempt to reach Nigeria’s national security adviser to clarify whether the deployment was official and justified.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Soyinka used the moment to make a wider point about what he sees as misplaced security priorities at a time when large parts of Nigeria continue to grapple with banditry, insurgency and violent crime.
He referenced Nigeria’s recent military involvement in the sub-region and suggested, with irony, that such external deployments appeared unnecessary when such concentration of force was visible within the country itself.
“Tinubu didn’t have to send the air force and the military to deal with this particular insurrection, this threat to our own sense of security and equilibrium. No. There is an easier way to do it,” Soyinka said.
“Let me tell you where Tinubu should look for forces to quell that insurrection. Right here, in Lagos, or in Abuja, perhaps.
“And I think next time there’s an insurrection, I think the president should just call that young man and say, ‘Seyi, go and put down those stupid people there. You have troops under your command’.”
The remarks, delivered partly in jest but with a sharp edge, drew a mix of laughter and murmurs from the audience at the ceremony, which honours excellence in investigative journalism across Africa.
Soyinka stressed that while it was natural for heads of state to have families and for security concerns to exist, such protections must not cross into the territory of privilege and symbolic power.
“This is not the first country whose head of state has a family,” he said.
“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.”
