While many Nigerians are still calling out Professor Wole Soyinka for his refusal to tear his green card as he promised he would do if Donald Trump won the just concluded United States presidential election, a 21-year old Californian, Cosmo Scharf, has returned over N40 million or $100,000 because he felt uncomfortable spending money coming from someone who helped Trump win.
Scharf was a Thiel Fellow, one of the 20 or so kids a year given $100,000 to drop out of school and chase their entrepreneurial dreams by Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and Facebook board member. “I knew for months about his general support. It always didn’t really sit well with me for awhile,” Scharf told Business Insider. ” The breaking point for me was realizing that he did have some part, small or large, in helping get him elected and the fact that it happened changed my perspective on it.” Scharf said according to Business Insider.
Thiel who supported Donald Trump and spoke at the Republican National Convention, pitched against what he called the rearrangement of chairs on the Titanic by insider politicians, evidently in reference to the same circle of politicians occupying the political positions of the country.
As for Scharf, he says the money he has received thus far in the program, he will be donating to a charity that will help climate change, a global issue that Trump has repeatedly denied. He also won’t accept any money that’s left in the fellowship’s $100,000 grant to him.
Many Nigerians really would wonder at the actions of Scharf; it goes to show how far many are willing to go when they sincerely believe in something. We now wait to see if Prof Soyinka makes good his promise to tear his green card on the day Donald Trump is inaugurated as POTUS 45 in another radical reaction.
