Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Outspoken Trump Critic, Reports US Visa Termination

The US 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 assure the consulate … that I’m very content with the termination of my visa,” Soyinka, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a press briefing.

Soyinka once had 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 struck a nerve and played a role in the US consulate’s decision.

Soyinka noted earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had requested his presence for an interview to reassess his visa, which he stated he would not attend.

According to a document from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have revoked his visa, invoking American government regulations that authorize “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 humorously remarked 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 declared.

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 hallmark of its wider restrictions on immigration, notably targeting university students who were outspoken about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka said he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he stated 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 said. “He’s been conducting himself as a dictator.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has worked for and been awarded honours top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.

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

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

Soyinka did not rule out to entertaining an invitation to the United States should circumstances change, but continued: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”

He went on to condemn the ramped-up arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka said. “When we see people being picked off the street – people being hauled up and they are held for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”

The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen security forces deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of targeted actions, as well as the curtailing of legal means of entry.