Soyinka celebrates Trump’s exit, brands ex-US president a racist

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has expressed joy over the exit of Donald Trump as the United States President.

Soyinka, who appeared on Arise Television Wednesday night, described the ex-US president as a “racist, monster and xenophobic aberrant.”

He applauded the US for redeeming its image by refusing to re-elect Trump as president.

The playwright, who tore to shreds his American Immigrant Visa after Trump was elected four years ago, said he had now forgiven the US for electing Biden.

Soyinka said: “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.

“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.”

On why he unhappy with the US for electing Trump in 2016, he added: “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 own society a shithole country, if you are so careless as to let him become the next President, I am moving out.”

He expressed regret at Capitol building attack by pro-Trump rioters but said the event would help the US understand how fragile democracy could be.

“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 is not really a given in their society and they had to confront it in a brutal unbelievable way and 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.

READ ALSO: Soyinka fulfils promise, destroys US ‘green card’ over Trump

“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 been a heart-warming occasion, “ Soyinka concluded.

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