Wole Soyinka, Outspoken Trump Critic, Announces US Visa Revocation
The American administration has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been critical about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.
“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very content with the termination of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, informed a press briefing.
Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he destroyed his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.
Soyinka speculated that his recent comments comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and played a role in the US consulate’s decision.
Soyinka said 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 sent to Soyinka, officials have revoked his visa, citing US state department 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 quite peculiar love letter from an embassy,”
he humorously remarked while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub. 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 affirmed.
The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, indicated it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.
The existing US administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably targeting university students who were vocal 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 worldwide recognition, 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 worked for and been given awards top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.
His most recent 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 remained open 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 criticise the escalated arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.
“This is not about me,” Soyinka declared. “When we see people being picked off the street – people being hauled up and they are held for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”
The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen national guard troops deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of targeted actions, as well as the curtailing of legal means of entry.
