At the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) Awards on Tuesday, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka sharply criticised the “battalion-size” security detail protecting Seyi Tinubu, son of President Bola Tinubu, calling it a glaring misallocation of state security resources.

Soyinka recounted stepping out of a hotel in Ikoyi and momentarily mistaking the large, armed entourage for a film crew. On realising the convoy belonged to Seyi Tinubu, he said he counted at least “15 or so heavily armed personnel enough to take over a small neighbouring city like Benin.”

He emphasised his concern by reaching out to the office of the National Security Adviser, questioning whether such deployment for a private individual could ever be justified. Soyinka used the incident to highlight what he described as a broader distortion in Nigeria’s security architecture at a time when many citizens face banditry, kidnappings and communal violence.

In a sharp reference to the recent unrest in neighbouring Benin Republic where Nigeria deployed troops and air power to contain an attempted coup, Soyinka quipped that the heavily armed security escort assigned to the president’s son alone was “enough to crush” any rebellion.

However, Soyinka urged restraint and called on the government to ensure that state security capabilities serve the broader public interest, not the protection of a single privileged individual.