Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Longtime Trump Critic, Reports American Visa Cancellation
The United States government has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the celebrated Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been outspoken about Trump since his earlier presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.
“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very content with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a media gathering.
Soyinka formerly possessed permanent residency in the United States, though he discarded his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.
Soyinka suggested that his recent comments comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have struck a nerve and led to the US consulate’s decision.
Soyinka mentioned earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had summoned him for an interview to reassess his visa, which he declared he would not attend.
According to a document from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, citing 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 lightheartedly commented while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s financial capital. 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, stated it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.
The existing US administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider restrictions on immigration, notably focusing on university students who were vocal about Palestinian rights.
Soyinka said he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he remarked 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 explained. “He’s been acting like a dictator.”
The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has worked for and been awarded honours top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.
His latest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a satire 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 continued: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”
He went on to denounce the increased arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.
“This is not about me,” Soyinka emphasized. “When we see people being detained arbitrarily – people being hauled up and they are held for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”
The recent immigration crackdown has seen military personnel deployed to US cities and citizens briefly held as part of targeted actions, as well as the limiting of legal means of entry.
