Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Trump Critic, Announces American Visa Termination

The US authorities has terminated the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been critical about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka stated on Tuesday.

“I want to inform the consulate … that I’m very pleased with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, informed a media gathering.

Soyinka once had permanent residency in the United States, though he discarded his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.

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

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

According to a letter from the consulate sent to Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, citing 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 rather curious love letter from an embassy,”

he lightheartedly commented while reading the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic centre. He also told 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, said it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.

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

Soyinka revealed he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he remarked 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 acting like a dictator.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has lectured at and been recognized by 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 referred to 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 accepting 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 emphasized. “When we see people being picked off the street – people being apprehended and they disappear for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what worries me.”

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