Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has said he is glad that Americans voted out former US president, Donald Trump, whom he described as a racist, monster and a xenophobe.
Soyinka said this during an interview on Wednesday, which was the inauguration day of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the US.
The Nobel Laureate had in 2016 torn his American immigrant visa to shreds over Trump’s electoral victory.
While displaying pieces of his torn green card, Soyinka , however, stated that despite “feeling honoured” with the transition of democratic power, he would not be renewing the green card since he could visit the US even without it.
He added that America had redeemed itself with Trump’s removal.
“I feel honoured to be associated with the democratic forces of the United States for correcting the unbelievable error that they committed four years ago,” Soyinka said on Arise TV.
“I consider myself back in that community from which I dissociated myself four years ago and I am very glad to be back but I am not renewing my green card, it is not necessary. I go in and out as a visiting alien and that is good enough for me.”
The playwright said he was very much concerned with the US elections in 2016 because it has a huge Nigerian population, adding that America’s history would not be complete without blacks.
He said he tried to warn US citizens and Nigerians in the diaspora about the impending danger of a Trump Presidency but his advice was ignored hence his decision to tear his green cars to shreds.
He said: “The complacency was very painful and I said if you people are so careless as to let this racist, this monster, this xenophobic aberrant, this disrespect of the female gender, this serial bankrupt, this man who called your society a shithole country, if you are so careless as to let him become the next President, I am moving out.”
Soyinka stated that he was happy about the attack on the Capitol building by pro-Trump rioters, noting that he wanted Americans to understand how fragile democracy is.
“So, you can imagine what I have felt over the last few weeks, the siege on the Capitol. In a way, it was rather heart-warming for the Americans themselves to feel that what they have been fighting for over a year is not really a given in their society and they had to confront it in a brutal unbelievable way. They came out of it in flying colours.
“It is not over, not by any means, I don’t say that for a single moment but it has been a lesson for us in this continent and we should be grateful that it did happen. I am sorry, of course about the loss of life.
“I regret the disruption of normal life but now we are placed on the same playing level, that we are all fighting for the same virtue in human conduct, the same system we all believe in that you cannot take it for granted, not anymore and for us here in Nigeria, it has been, I hope, it was a heart-warming occasion,” the literary giant said.
