After threatening to do it a week before the US presidential elections last November, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has confirmed he has destroyed his green card because Donald Trump won.

Soyinka, the first African writer to be awarded the Nobel prize in literature, was jailed twice for his criticism of the Nigerian government during the 1960s, famously composing protest poems on toilet paper from his cell in solitary confinement. In 1994, Soyinka’s passport was confiscated by the de facto president Sani Abacha after he urged Nigerians to not pay taxes, as their money would aid the military. After years of living in voluntary exile and teaching overseas, Soyinka eventually sought refuge in the United States that same year, with the help of former US president Jimmy Carter. He later received a death sentence in absentia in 1997, from the regime under Abacha.

On 2 November, six days before the US election, Soyinka told a student audience at Oxford University’s Ertegun House that he would hold his own, self-described “Wolexit” if Trump won, and destroy his green card. “If in the unlikely event he does win, the first thing he’ll do is to say [that] all green-card holders must reapply to come back into the US. Well, I’m not waiting for that,” he said at the time. “The moment they announce his victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up.”

In an interview with the Atlantic on Tuesday, Soyinka confirmed he had followed through on his pledge to destroy his green card if Trump won as he celebrated Thanksgiving with his family in the US.

Soyinka, who has returned to living mainly in Nigeria since Abacha died in 1998, said he had made his green card “inoperable”. He did not expand on how he had destroyed it, but said: “I don’t have strong enough fingers to tear up a green card. As long as Trump is in charge, if I absolutely have to visit the United States, I prefer to go in the queue for a regular visa with others. I’m no longer part of the society, not even as a resident.”

Soyinka described the act as cathartic: “I delivered myself from uncertainty, from discomfort, from internal turmoil.”

In an interview with Nigeria’s the Interview magazine in November, Soyinka said he would destroy his green card in preparation for Trump’s inauguration on 20 January and that he “felt disaster in my marrow” as he watched the election results come in. “Trump’s wall is already under construction,” he said. “Walls are built in the mind, and Trump has erected walls, not only across the mental landscape of America, but across the global landscape.”


https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/18/wole-soyinka-confirms-he-destroyed-his-green-card-after-trump-win?CMP=share_btn_tw#img-1

This man is criminally smart and since he see Nigerians as fools, (which I don't quite blame him because we have been fooling around for a while now, even voted and cheered a murderous and certificateless criminal as our President) he has been toying with our collective intelligence.

If he doesn't have a video of him doing the did, he should select the warmest part of the abbess and take his everlasting rest..

I think his greyhair has tangled some vital elements/areas of his brain leaving a mirage of Soyinka we used to know..

I respect him for walking his talk.


I love Trump but i respect people wishes.


Buhari can't get a love from my shadow not to talk of me

Wole e don do abeg.....

And we are to believe him because he said it. Where is the picture of him tearing it.
Prof. abeg shift.

pisure or...

Like if you actually came to see the picture of the destroyed green card

Mr. Professor you better respect yourself. Silence is golden!

Media has been taken advantage of Prof.'s old age lately.

They just won't let him be.

Anyways, #PictureOrAdontbelieveIt

edey2real:
And we are to believe him because he said it. Where is the picture of him tearing it.
Prof. abeg shift.

But he doesn't care if you believe it or not.

Oh are you sure

Prof. Wit all respect. We dont really care about dis card issue. Let it just go. We need u to be more constructive as per nigeria situation nao. America got her own problem so also nig. But one os bigger dan d other. Ppl are not smiling in nig. We need u ppl to talk about it. Team F giver ovet to u

At his age, he has less biz to attend to over there.
He should have tried that in his 30's.

Nigerians supervise the unnecessarily. Of what importance is the card he destroyed to this country.

If I hear that the card is destroyed

Who still trust this senile old afonja..
The older the cunnier

Nobody need this useless yoruba man.

Proof, mop we need evidence.

Wole soyinka, maka why na

Wole is a man of integrity. He did not eat his words and we want other highly placed Nigerians to emulate him.

No pictures evidence, abi?

lie

BeClever:
This man is criminally smart and since he see Nigerians as fools, (which I don't quite blame him because we have been fooling around for a while now, even voted and cheered a murderous and certificateless criminal as our President) he has been toying with our collective intelligence.

If he doesn't have a video of him doing the did, he should select the warmest part of the abbess and take his everlasting rest..

I think his greyhair has tangled some vital elements/areas of his brain leaving a mirage of Soyinka we used to know..

Dunno why I read this over and over laughing

Let him show us the fragment as evidence, we don't trust him anymore

Pls check out my signature for quality and durable furniture

Where? When?

Who wole soyinka hep?

Owk...
Kwontinu
But we knw u'r lying

Soyinka is risking jail term