This was to fulfill a promise of a Donald Trump electoral win during the US presidential campaign.
“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.
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.
Read their account from below.
Soyinka, who detests politics of extremism whether in his home region of Africa and elsewhere as well as right wing politics and racism says, Trump has empowered right wing politics and endangered race relations in the United States.
Even if Trump makes a retract of his campaign of racism and xenophobia, the harm has already been done he believes .
The Ghanaian author, Ivor Agyeman-Duah who is currently engaged in literary arts project with the Nobel Laureate at the University of Johannesburg confirmed this to Joy News.
He said Soyinka’s cutting of the Green Card was over a week ago and observed his last Thanksgiving Holiday at his home in Los Angeles a couple of days back.
Mr. Agyeman-Duah who recently edited the book, May Their Shadows Never Shrink-Wole Soyinka and the Oxford Professorship of Poetry, explained that Soyinka had over the years declined on multiple offers to trade his Nigerian citizenship for US citizenship.
He became a Permanent Resident in the US after the Sani Abacha Government put a price on his head necessitating his exile and initial teaching appointment at Emory University .
It was the former US President and fellow Nobel Laureate, Jimmy Carter who years ago intervened to ensure Soyinka’s US residence after Soyinka had previously been given US Government security protection against Abacha’s possible extermination, Mr. Agyeman-Duah explained.
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