By Kingston Magare 10.12.2025
The size of Seyi Tinubu’s personal protection army unit has outraged Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka.
Seyi Tinubu the son of President Bola Tinubu according to Soyinka is protected by a group of soldiers large enough to prevent a coup from happening in a country, adding that President Tinubu might as well have asked Seyi to send his army to prevent Benin Republic from falling into the hands of coup plotters who tried to topple the government of Patrice Talon last Sunday.
He lamented that the excessive deployment of security personnel around the President’s family reflected poorly on Nigeria’s priorities and security architecture.
“I was coming out of my hotel, and I saw what looked like a film set. I said, Oh, they are shooting a film on the ground of the hotel,” Soyinka said in video circulating online.
“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.”
“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. Then, I said I’ve just seen something I can’t believe I don’t understand, and I described the scene to him,” he said.