Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Outspoken Trump Critic, Reports American Visa Cancellation
The American government has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the celebrated Nigerian Nobel prize-winning playwright who has been critical about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.
“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received 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 surmised that his recent statements comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and contributed to the US consulate’s decision.
Soyinka said earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had summoned him for an interview to review his visa, which he declared he would not attend.
According to a communication from the consulate sent to Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, invoking 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 somewhat unusual love letter from an embassy,”
he humorously commented 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, stated it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.
The present US administration has made visa revocations a defining feature of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably affecting university students who were outspoken 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 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 most recent 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 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 condemn 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 apprehended and they are held for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what troubles me.”
The current immigration crackdown has seen security forces deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of intensive operations, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.
