Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, has fulfilled his pledge to destroy his green card if Donald Trump won the November US presidential election.
Soyinka, a scholar-in-residence at New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs, had vowed to give up his permanent US residency over Trump in reaction to the billionaire real estate mogul’s anti-immigration policy.
“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,” the Nobel laureate had said.
“The moment they announce his victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up.”
After Trump was declared president-elect, the comment started gaining traction, with many, particularly on social media, asking the scholar to match his words with action.
But speaking at a conference in South Africa, the internationally-acclaimed playwright and poet said he had thrown away the green card and returned to where he had always been.
“I have already done it; I have disengaged (from the United States). I have done what I said I would do,” he reportedly said.
“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.”
Hattip to TheCable
