Renowned Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has revealed that the United States revoked his visa and barred him from entering the country, marking a dramatic turn in his long-standing relationship with the U.S.
Speaking during a press conference on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, the 91-year-old author said he received an unusual request from the U.S. consulate, asking him to present his passport so that his visa could be officially cancelled. The notice, he said, cited “new information” without elaboration.
“It was a rather curious love letter from an embassy,” Soyinka remarked wryly, advising institutions and universities planning to invite him to the U.S. “not to waste their time.”
The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria has declined to comment, stating it does not discuss individual immigration cases.
Soyinka, who became Africa’s first Nobel laureate in literature in 1986, once held U.S. permanent residency but renounced his green card in 2016 following the election of Donald Trump. He symbolically tore up the card in protest, saying it had “fallen between the fingers of a pair of scissors and got cut into pieces.”
“I have no visa. I am banned,” Soyinka confirmed at the press conference.
The celebrated playwright and political activist, who has served as a visiting professor at several U.S. universities for more than three decades, linked the visa cancellation to his outspoken criticism of former President Trump and the U.S. government’s immigration policies.
He noted that his recent remarks comparing Trump to Uganda’s former dictator, Idi Amin, might have contributed to the decision.
“When I called Donald Trump ‘Idi Amin in whiteface,’ I thought I was paying him a compliment,” Soyinka quipped. “He’s been behaving like a dictator.”
Idi Amin, Uganda’s infamous military ruler from 1971 to 1979, was known for his brutal regime and widespread human rights abuses.
When asked whether he would attempt to return to the U.S., Soyinka responded with characteristic wit:
“How old am I?”
His comments come just months after the U.S. State Department introduced stricter visa rules for Nigerians and several other African nations. The new policy limits nearly all non-diplomatic and non-immigrant visas to single-entry permits valid for three months, a significant rollback from the five-year multiple-entry visas many had previously enjoyed.
