Should he win the elections next week, Donald Trump will have one less foreigner living in the United States to worry about.
Wole Soyinka, one of Africa’s most famous writers and the continent’s first ever Nobel prize winner in literature, says he plans to leave the United States if Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, beats Hillary Clinton to the White House.
Speaking to students at Oxford University’s Ertegun House, Soyinka, 82, said he will rip his green card if Trump wins. “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,” Soyinka said. “Well, I’m not waiting for that. The moment they announce his victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up.”
Soyinka’s disclosure comes after Trump’s controversial and flawed policy proposals on immigration, a pillar of his campaign so far. Asides his plans to build a wall, Trump has also stated plans to deport illegal immigrants in America. As a result of the campaign’s radical rhetoric, thousands of immigrants are reportedly rushing to apply for citizenship amid fears of a Trump presidency.
Soyinka is currently a scholar-in-residence at New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs.
A fierce critic of military governments in Nigeria, Soyinka is known back home for his hard-hitting, no-frills takes on political and public issues. In 1967, during the Nigerian civil war, he was arrested and jailed in solitary confinement for two years without trial after the government accused him of being a spy for the secessionist Biafra movement. Decades later, he remains vocal about human rights issues, and advocates jail terms for corrupt politicians.