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The United States government has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been outspoken about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.

“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very pleased with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a press briefing.

Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he discarded his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.

Soyinka suggested that his recent statements comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have provoked a reaction and played a role in the US consulate’s decision.

Soyinka noted earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had requested his presence for an interview to reassess his visa, which he said he would not attend.

According to a document from the consulate sent to Soyinka, officials have cancelled his visa, citing American government regulations that allow “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 jokingly stated while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s financial capital. He also informed any organizations hoping to invite him to the United States “not to waste their time”.

“I have no visa. I am banned,” Soyinka declared.

The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, stated it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.

The existing US administration has made visa revocations a defining feature of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably affecting university students who were expressive about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka said 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 behaving like a dictator.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has taught at and been recognized by top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.

His most recent novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a satire 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 considering an invitation to the United States should circumstances change, but stated: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”

He went on to criticise the escalated arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka said. “When we see people being arrested publicly – people being hauled up and they disappear for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what troubles me.”

The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen national guard troops deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of intensive operations, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.