🔗 Share this article

The US administration has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning playwright who has been outspoken about Trump since his earlier presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.

“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the termination of my visa,” Soyinka, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a media gathering.

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

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

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

he lightheartedly stated while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub. He also informed 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, indicated it could not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality rules.

The present US administration has made visa revocations a defining feature of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably targeting university students who were vocal 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 worldwide recognition, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was giving him praise,”

Soyinka said. “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 recognized by 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 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 added: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”

He went on to denounce the escalated arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka emphasized. “When we see people being arrested publicly – people being taken away and they vanish for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what worries me.”

The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen military personnel deployed to US cities and citizens briefly held as part of intensive operations, as well as the limiting of legal means of entry.