Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Trump Critic, Reveals US Visa Termination
The American government has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the celebrated Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been critical about Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.
“I want to tell the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the termination of my visa,” Soyinka, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a news conference.
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 provoked a reaction 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 declared he would not attend.
According to a letter from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have cancelled his visa, referencing 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 rather curious love letter from an embassy,”
he lightheartedly remarked while presenting 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 affirmed.
The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, stated it could not comment on individual cases, pointing to confidentiality rules.
The current US administration has made visa revocations a signature of its wider crackdown 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 paying him a compliment,”
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 recognized by 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 remained open 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 picked off the street – people being apprehended and they vanish for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what troubles me.”
The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen military personnel deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of targeted actions, as well as the limiting of legal means of entry.
