Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Outspoken Trump Critic, Announces American Visa Cancellation

The United States authorities has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been critical about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.

“I want to inform the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a news conference.

Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he tore up his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.

Soyinka speculated that his recent comments comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have provoked a reaction and contributed to the US consulate’s decision.

Soyinka said earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had called him in for an interview to review his visa, which he stated he would not attend.

According to a letter from the consulate sent to Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, referencing United States regulations that permit “a consular officer, the secretary, or a department official to whom the secretary has delegated this authority … to revoke a nonimmigrant visa at any time, in his or her discretion”.

“This is a quite peculiar love letter from an embassy,”

he jokingly stated while reading the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic centre. He also advised any organizations hoping to invite him to the United States “not to waste their time”.

“I have no visa. I am banned,” Soyinka said.

The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, stated it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.

The existing US administration has made visa revocations a defining feature of its wider clampdown on immigration, notably affecting university students who were vocal about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka mentioned he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he said Trump “should be proud of”.

“Idi Amin was a man of global standing, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was showing him respect,”

Soyinka commented. “He’s been conducting himself as a dictator.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has lectured at and been given awards top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.

His newest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a satire about corruption in Nigeria, was published in 2021. Soyinka called the book as his “gift to Nigeria”.

In February, the Crucible theatre in Sheffield staged Death and the King’s Horseman.

Soyinka remained open to considering an invitation to the United States should circumstances change, but stated: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”

He went on to condemn the increased arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka emphasized. “When we see people being detained arbitrarily – people being hauled up and they are held for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what worries me.”

The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen national guard troops deployed to US cities and citizens briefly held as part of aggressive raids, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.