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I have thrown away my green card, Soyinka says

By Editor
01 December 2016   |   2:22 pm
Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said Thursday he has fulfilled his pledge to throw away his US residency green card and leave the country if Donald Trump won the presidential election.
Soyinka

Soyinka

Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said Thursday he has fulfilled his pledge to throw away his US residency green card and leave the country if Donald Trump won the presidential election.

Shortly before the vote, Soyinka had vowed to give up his permanent US residency over a 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 told AFP 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.

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.

“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.

Soyinka, one of Africa’s most famous writers and rights activists, 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.

30 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    You never said you would throw away your green card. What you said was that you would destroy it publicly. You can’t deceive the public at your old age. You talk too much and that to me is your problem.

    • Author’s gravatar

      Why is that a problem to you? The man said he threw it away. If he did, fine. That was a personal decision. He is not crazy about a card you cherished so much. Dem!

    • Author’s gravatar

      Comfort, be cautious of how you address an elderly man.

      • Author’s gravatar

        If he is an elderly man, he would have kept quiet rather than meddling into another country’s presidential election.

        • Author’s gravatar

          Comfort Destiny: He is not meddling with another country’s Presidential election but expressing himself the way he wishes as his fundamental human right. You seem to lack some basic decorum and respect for other peoples opinions on issues. Try to be a little detached form other peoples expressed convictions else one might think, from your utterances, that you have some underlying inferiority complex and envy for an accomplished man.

          • Author’s gravatar

            Soyinka talks too much and lacks decorum. He talks without thinking or reasoning. He is simply a coward if he doesn’t destroy his green card publicly, as he had promised he would do if Trump should win the presidential election.

          • Author’s gravatar

            he has kept it away to use it another time. he speaks before he thinks.

          • Author’s gravatar

            very correct. i know him from the then university of ife, he is a quota noble laureate.

        • Author’s gravatar

          if he is elderly, he should have more sense.

      • Author’s gravatar

        my foot.

        there are many elderly men with twisted minds. how can one respect them??

    • Author’s gravatar

      and that is probes too.
      his mouth works faster than his brain.

    • Author’s gravatar

      I respect your views as a human being but it seems you lack basic respect for someone older than you. Not to talk of someone more accomplished than you, your parents or ancestors. Wole Soyinka is older and more accomplished than you and so you should give him some respect. I think you are simply rude! What a shame!

      • Author’s gravatar

        Only a gullible mind like you will praise a man that can’t even keep his promise. Soyinka may be a professor, but I am far better than him academically and financially.

        • Author’s gravatar

          ………”but I am far better than him academically and financially.” You see what you said about yourself in comparison to Wole Soyinka? Subconsciously you feel inferior to him hence the bitterness against his statement about the green card…. How has Soyinka violated your human rights or annoyed you or other Nigerians? Did he take your wife from you?(Se o gba iyawo e ni?) Because he is a World figure, whatever he says grabs the headlines anywhere, much like Mandela, I would advise you again, to detach emotionally from Wole Soyinkas statements as he has nothing, absolutely nothing to prove to you or anyone, he is a free citizen of the world and has his freedoms. He doesn’t have to tear his green card publicly before you believe him, and besides, his statement that he is going to destroy it publicly can be a “hyperbole”. Check the meaning of hyperbole and go and eat and sleep. Relax before you burst an artery in your head leading to stroke because of what? Nothing! Cheers.

      • Author’s gravatar

        there are many old fools around.

      • Author’s gravatar

        and you yourself are a sample of crudeness.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Vow fulfilled! Time is ripe we live like the people we copy. Destroy… throw away…. whatever it is, every such action amounts to disposing of something. The man has shown that he’s a ‘masculine’ man!

  • Author’s gravatar

    AS USUAL, SOYINKA, SITTING ON THE FENCE ON GREEN CARD??

    YOUR POSSESSION OR OTHERWISE OF GREEN CARD IS OF NO RELEVANCE AND IMPORTANCE TO NIGERIA AND NIGERIANS. IT IS GOOD FOR YOU TO BE IN NIGERIA, WHERE YOU RIGHTLY BELONG.

  • Author’s gravatar