Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has announced that the US revoked his visa and imposed a ban on him entering the country. The 91-year-old author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, was summoned to the US consulate where he was informed that his visa would be cancelled in person due to new, unspecified information that had come to light.
Soyinka referred to the consulate's request as a rather curious love letter from an embassy during a news conference held on Tuesday, advising organizations wishing to invite him to the US not to waste their time. The US embassy in Nigeria, however, declined to comment on individual cases.
Previously, Soyinka had held permanent residency in the US but renounced it in 2016 by literally tearing up his green card in protest against the election of Donald Trump. Regarding his current situation, Soyinka quipped that his green card had 'fallen between the fingers of a pair of scissors and got cut into a couple of pieces.'
With over three decades of regular teaching engagements at various US universities, Soyinka expressed his disappointment, stating: I have no visa. I am banned. His long-standing criticism of US immigration policies and previous remarks comparing Trump to Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin may have contributed to the revocation of his visa.
When I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was paying him a compliment; he’s been behaving like a dictator, Soyinka emphasized during the conference. As he reflected on his future interactions with the US, he quipped, How old am I? in response to whether he plans to return.
The recent visa revocation comes in the context of the US State Department's sweeping changes to non-immigrant visa policies for Nigerian and other African citizens, now restricting visas to single-entry and only three-month validity, contrasting with the previous longer-term, multi-entry permits.
