Wole Soyinka, Trump Critic, Reveals US Visa Revocation

The United States government has terminated the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning playwright who has been outspoken about Trump since his earlier presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.

“I want to tell the consulate … that I’m very pleased with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, informed 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 speculated that his recent comments comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and led to the US consulate’s decision.

Soyinka noted 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, invoking US state department regulations that allow “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 humorously remarked while reciting 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, said it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.

The current US administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider clampdown on immigration, notably affecting university students who were expressive about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka mentioned he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he stated 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 paying him a compliment,”

Soyinka commented. “He’s been behaving 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 most recent novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a critique 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 left the door open to accepting 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 increased arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka said. “When we see people being detained arbitrarily – people being hauled up and they disappear for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what troubles me.”

The recent immigration crackdown has seen military personnel deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of intensive operations, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.