Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Outspoken Trump Critic, Reveals American Visa Cancellation
The US government has cancelled the visa for Wole Soyinka, the celebrated Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been critical about Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.
“I want to tell the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the termination of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a press briefing.
Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he tore up his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.
Soyinka surmised that his recent statements comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and led 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 review his visa, which he declared he would not attend.
According to a communication from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have cancelled 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 rather curious love letter from an embassy,”
he humorously remarked while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic centre. 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, said it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.
The present US administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider restrictions on immigration, notably affecting university students who were vocal about Palestinian rights.
Soyinka mentioned he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he said 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 showing him respect,”
Soyinka commented. “He’s been acting like a dictator.”
The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has lectured at and been given awards 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 described 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 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 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 national guard troops deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of intensive operations, as well as the limiting of legal means of entry.
