Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Outspoken Trump Critic, Announces US Visa Termination

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

“I want to tell the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a press briefing.

Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he discarded 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 played a role in the US consulate’s decision.

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

According to a document from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have cancelled his visa, citing US state department 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 humorously commented while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub. 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 current US administration has made visa revocations a signature of its wider clampdown on immigration, notably affecting 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 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 worked for 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 commentary 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 did not rule out 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 denounce the ramped-up arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka declared. “When we see people being picked off the street – people being taken away and they vanish for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what troubles 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 curtailing of legal means of entry.