The US government has terminated the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning playwright who has been critical about Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.
“I want to inform the consulate … that I’m very pleased with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, informed a news conference.
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 caused offense and contributed 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 reevaluate his visa, which he declared he would not attend.
According to a letter from the consulate addressed to Soyinka, officials have cancelled his visa, citing United States 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 humorously remarked while reading 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 affirmed.
The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, stated it could not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality rules.
The current US administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably focusing on university students who were outspoken about Palestinian rights.
Soyinka said he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he said Trump “should be proud of”.
“Idi Amin was a man of international stature, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was giving him praise,”
Soyinka said. “He’s been acting like a dictator.”
The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has taught 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 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 considering 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 criticise the increased arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.
“This is not about me,” Soyinka said. “When we see people being detained arbitrarily – 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 short-term arrested as part of intensive operations, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.
