Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Longtime Trump Critic, Announces American Visa Termination
The US government has cancelled 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 assure the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a news conference.
Soyinka formerly possessed permanent residency in the United States, though he tore up his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.
Soyinka speculated that his recent remarks comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and contributed to the US consulate’s decision.
Soyinka noted earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had requested his presence for an interview to reevaluate his visa, which he stated he would not attend.
According to a letter from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, invoking United States regulations that allow “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 lightheartedly stated while reciting 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, referencing confidentiality rules.
The current US administration has made visa revocations a defining feature of its wider restrictions on immigration, notably targeting university students who were outspoken about Palestinian rights.
Soyinka revealed 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 showing him respect,”
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 recognized by top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.
His most recent 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 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 criticise 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 apprehended and they vanish for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”
The current immigration crackdown has seen military personnel deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of aggressive raids, as well as the limiting of legal means of entry.
