Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Longtime Trump Critic, Reveals US Visa Revocation
The American government has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning playwright who has been outspoken about Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.
“I want to inform the consulate … that I’m very content with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a press briefing.
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 suggested 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 mentioned earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had summoned him for an interview to reassess his visa, which he said he would not attend.
According to a communication from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have revoked his visa, citing American government 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 somewhat unusual love letter from an embassy,”
he jokingly remarked while reciting 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 said.
The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, stated it could not comment on individual cases, pointing to 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 expressive about Palestinian rights.
Soyinka revealed he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he remarked 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 explained. “He’s been conducting himself as a dictator.”
The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has taught at 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 commentary 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 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 condemn the increased arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.
“This is not about me,” Soyinka said. “When we see people being picked off the street – people being hauled up and they disappear for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”
The recent immigration crackdown has seen security forces deployed to US cities and citizens temporarily detained as part of aggressive raids, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.