Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says his US visa has been revoked

Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has said the US has revoked his visa and barred him from entering the country.

The 91-year-old author, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, said the US consulate had asked him to bring his passport so his visa could be canceled in person as unspecified new information emerged.

Soyinka called the invitation “a rather curious love letter from an embassy” at a news conference on Tuesday and told organizations hoping to invite him to the US “not to waste their time”.

The US Embassy in Nigeria said it could not comment on individual cases.

The Nobel laureate previously had permanent residency in the US but gave it up in 2016, tearing up his green card in protest at the election of President Donald Trump.

A green card is a permit for permanent residence in the US – prized by many African immigrants to the US.

Soyinka confirmed on Tuesday that she no longer had her green card – jokingly adding that it had “caught between the fingers of a pair of scissors and was cut into several pieces”.

The renowned author has held regular teaching appointments at American universities for the past 30 years.

“I don’t have a visa. I have a ban,” he said on Tuesday.

Soyinka has long criticized the Trump administration’s radical stance on immigration and linked the visa cancellation to his outspoken criticism.

He said his recent comparison of Trump to the Ugandan dictator – “Idi Amin in white face” – may have contributed to the current situation.

“When I called Donald Trump on Idi Amin, I thought I was paying him a compliment,” Soyinka said, “he’s acting like a dictator.”

Idi Amin was a Ugandan military officer and dictator who ruled the country from 1971 to 1979, known for his brutal regime and widespread human rights abuses.

Asked if he would consider returning to the US, Soyinka said: “How old am I?”

In July, the US State Department announced sweeping changes to its nonimmigrant visa policy for citizens of Nigeria and several other African countries.

According to the policy, almost all non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to Nigerians and nationals of Cameroon, Ethiopia and Ghana will now be single-entry and valid for only three months, canceling the up to five-year multiple-entry visas they previously had.