Wole Soyinka confirms he destroyed his green card after Trump win

The Nobel laureate, who threatened to destroy his green card last year, confirmed he has done so as an act of protest before 20 January’s inauguration ceremony

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.

Continue reading...