Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, has criticised what he described as the excessive deployment of security personnel around the family of President Bola Tinubu, saying it reflects poorly on Nigeria’s priorities and security architecture.
Speaking at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative
Journalism (WSCIJ) Awards in Lagos on Tuesday, Soyinka said he recently
witnessed a disturbing level of armed personnel attached to the president’s son
while at a hotel in the Ikoyi area of the state.
“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 recalled.
“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.
“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.”
Soyinka said he was alarmed enough to try reaching the
national security adviser (NSA) to confirm whether the deployment was official
and justifiable.
“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.”
He said President Tinubu did not need to mobilise the
military or air force to confront threats in countries like the Benin Republic,
joking that the security detail around his son could easily crush a rebellion.
“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’”.
Soyinka stressed that while presidents around the world have
families, the privilege must not be abused.
“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.”
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