Trump: Soyinka made good his threat destroyed his ‘American Green Card’

Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said Thursday he has fulfilled his pledge to throw away his United States of America residency green card and leave the country if Donald Trump won the presidential election. National Daily has learnt.

Shortly before the Americans went to poll to elect a new president, Soyinka had vowed to give up his permanent US residency in the likehood of a Don Trump victory to protest against the Republican billionaire’s campaign promises to get tough on immigration.

“I have already done it, I have disengaged (from the United States). I have done what I said I would do,” the 82-year-old said on the sidelines of an education conference at the University of Johannesburg.

“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” meaning his homeland Nigeria.

National Daily search revealed that the 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.

At the same time he said he would not discourage others from applying for a green card. This is in response to the enquiries if he will encourage other Nigerians to tow the path by National Daily and other news mediums.

“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,” he said.

Further search by National Daily on Soyinka, shows that he is one of Africa’s most famous writers and rights activists, he was jailed in 1967 for 22 months during Nigeria’s civil war.

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