Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian playwright, poet and first African to be awarded a Nobel Prize, has come under public criticism following his November 2nd declaration to destroy his green card if Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States of America.
The award-winning poet got infuriated after he was called out to fulfil his promise by destroying his green card.
The professor addressed the issue by asking the ‘noisome critics’, to stop meddling in people’s affairs, stating clearing his desire to do as he pleased.
He said, it is “not the business of any stupid Nigerian to open his or her mouth” to challenge his right to say he was leaving the United States.
“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,” he told students of Oxford University, England.
“The moment they announce his victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up.”
Wole Soyinka, had also revealed last Thursday, that he had kept his promise by destroying his green card, but has also not hidden his disappointment at the group of people who taunted him over the promise.
In a press conference in Lagos, the Nobel Prize winning author also condemned the behavior of his critics, calling them ignorant and further stating his desire t move out of Nigeria, his foundation’s residence.
In his words, “If I decide that I want to leave the United States and I want to leave it in a particular way, that’s my business,” he said.
“It’s not the business of the Internet; I don’t know what the excitation is all about. As the saying goes, why do Nigerians wail louder than the bereaved? What is your business?
“What is the business of any stupid Nigerian to open his or her mouth to challenge my right to say I am leaving? Did you get the green card for me? Do I eat in your house? The arrogance of some Nigerians is overwhelming. I don’t interfere with you, why would you interfere with me?
“One had the impudence to write that he needs a video to reassure him that it’s been done. Video? Are you mad? I don’t know you, I don’t respect you. Do you think I am here to entertain you? They want cheap thrill.”
“I am going to move the residency operated by my foundation out of this country, I have already begun to make arrangements. It is my property, I can do what I like with it,” he said.
“Maybe I should not be exiting the United States, maybe it’s Nigeria I should be exiting from because how can the people on behalf of whom one has struggled for all one’s life be so slavish in mentality as to start querying the right of their champion to free speech?”