Wole Soyinka, Longtime Trump Critic, Reveals American Visa Cancellation

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

“I want to tell the consulate … that I’m very content with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, informed 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 suggested that his recent remarks comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and led to the US consulate’s decision.

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

According to a document from the consulate sent to 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 somewhat unusual love letter from an embassy,”

he jokingly 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 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 defining feature of its wider clampdown on immigration, notably focusing on university students who were expressive about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka mentioned 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 paying him a compliment,”

Soyinka explained. “He’s been acting like a dictator.”

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

His latest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a critique 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 left the door open to accepting 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 declared. “When we see people being detained arbitrarily – 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 targeted actions, as well as the limiting of legal means of entry.