Wole Soyinka, Outspoken Trump Critic, Reports US Visa Termination

The US government has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning playwright who has been vocal about Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.

“I want to inform the consulate … that I’m very pleased with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a media gathering.

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 remarks comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have provoked a reaction and contributed to the US consulate’s decision.

Soyinka mentioned earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had called him in for an interview to reevaluate his visa, which he said he would not attend.

According to a document from the consulate sent to Soyinka, officials have revoked his visa, referencing United States 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 stated while reading 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 affirmed.

The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, indicated it could not comment on individual cases, pointing to confidentiality rules.

The existing US administration has made visa revocations a signature of its wider restrictions on immigration, notably focusing on university students who were vocal about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka revealed he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he stated 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 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 called 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 entertaining 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 criticise 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 vanish 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 short-term arrested as part of aggressive raids, as well as the curtailing of legal means of entry.