Wednesday 29/October/2025 – 10:06 AM
It was reported on Wednesday that the US administration headed by Donald Trump has canceled the visa of the 91-year-old Nigerian writer and Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Wole Soyinka, who is known for his sharp criticism of Trump since his first term.
Canceling the visa of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Soyinka said during a press conference that he was completely satisfied with the decision to cancel the visa, indicating that he had expected this after his recent statements in which he compared the American president to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, which he considered might have angered the American authorities and prompted them to take the decision.
The Nigerian writer explained that he had permanent residency in the United States before he tore up his green card following Trump’s victory in the 2016 elections, adding that the American consulate in Lagos recently summoned him to re-evaluate his visa, but he refused to attend.
He pointed out that an official letter from the US Consulate, seen by Agence France-Presse, confirmed that the cancellation of the visa was based on the regulations of the Ministry of State, which authorize consular officials or the minister himself to cancel a non-immigrant visa at any time at their discretion.
Soyinka described the letter he received as a strange love letter from the embassy, mocking its content, and called on institutions wishing to invite him to the United States not to waste their time, stressing that he was now without a visa and banned from entering the country.
The US Embassy in Abuja refused to comment on the case, citing confidentiality rules that prevent it from dealing with individual cases.
The decision comes within the framework of Trump’s strict immigration policy, which included canceling the visas of a number of university students who expressed positions supportive of the Palestinians.
Soyinka considered that his comparison of Trump to Idi Amin should not be interpreted as an insult, saying that the American president should have been proud of the comparison, adding that Amin was a statesman of international stature, but at the same time he made clear that Trump’s behavior is similar to that of a dictator.
Soyinka, the author of the play Death of the Royal Knight, is considered one of Africa’s most prominent writers. He taught at prestigious American universities such as Harvard and Cornell, from which he received many honors.
His last novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, published in 2021, was a satirical work on corruption in Nigeria, which he described as his gift to his homeland.
At the conclusion of the conference, Soyinka stressed that he did not rule out visiting the United States in the future if circumstances change, but he stressed that he would not seek to do so himself because there was nothing he was looking for there, criticizing at the same time the widespread arrest campaign targeting illegal immigrants in America, and denouncing cases of arbitrary detention and the separation of families from each other.
Trump’s policy in this file is considered one of the most controversial measures, as it witnessed the deployment of National Guard forces in American cities and the temporary arrest of citizens as part of widespread raids, in addition to restricting legal means of entry into the country, according to the newspaper.
