Finally, Soyinka destroys US green card over Trump

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has finally fulfilled his promise of trashing his United States (US) residency green card and leave the country if Donald Trump won the presidential election.

Soyinka had shortly before the November 8, 2016, US presidential election, pledged to give up his permanent US residency over Republican candidate’s victory as a protest against Trump’s campaign promises to be tough on US immigration law.

Reacting on the matter, Soyinka, on Thursday, in South Africa, was quoted to have said that: “I have already done it, I have disengaged (from the United States). I have done what I said I would do.”

“I had a horror of what is to come with Trump… I threw away the (green) card, and I have relocated, and I’m back to where I have always been.”

The AFP quoted the 82-year-old Nigerian Nobel Prize winner to have said, on the sidelines of an education conference at the University of Johannesburg.

Soyinka, one of Africa’s most famous writers and rights activists, was jailed in 1967 for 22 months during Nigeria’s civil war.

Soyinka, a prolific playwright, novelist and poet, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986 and has been a regular teacher at US universities including Harvard, Cornell and Yale.

Consequent upon his decision, Soyinka reportedly said he would not discourage others from applying for a green card.

“It’s useful in many ways. I wouldn’t for one single moment discourage any Nigerians or anybody from acquiring a green card… but I have had enough of it,” Soyinka said.

He was reported to have recently completed a term as scholar-in-residence at New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs.