Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has shared two times he got into trouble with authorities in the United States but said those incidents were not enough to label him a criminal.
Soyinka spoke about the experiences during a media chat held at Freedom Park in Lagos on Tuesday.
The first incident, he said, happened at an American airport. According to him, he had travelled from the United Kingdom during winter and decided to eat some chilli pepper to keep warm.
He also put some of the pepper in his pocket before boarding his flight.
When he arrived in the U.S., airport officers found the pepper and fined him 25 dollars for bringing it in.
The second incident took place in the 1970s at the Chicago airport.
Soyinka explained that he had challenged an immigration officer who made a racist comment. The exchange turned into a heated argument, and the police were called in.
He said the late Emeka Anyaoku, who later became Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, stepped in to calm the situation.
Soyinka added that apart from these two encounters, he has enjoyed a good relationship with the United States—until the era of former President Donald Trump.