Dakar, Senegal
AP
—
Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said on Tuesday that he was denied a non-resident visa to enter the United States, adding that his recent criticism of US President Donald Trump may have been the reason.
The 91-year-old Nigerian writer became the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.
Soyinka told reporters on Tuesday that he believed this had little to do with him, but rather a product of U.S. immigration policy. If he wanted to enroll again, he was told to reapply.
“It’s not about me. I’m not really interested in returning to the United States,” he said. “But it’s about principles: Human beings have the right to be treated decently wherever they are.”
Soyinka, who teaches in the United States and previously held a green card, joked on Tuesday that his green card “got into an accident” eight years ago and “fell between scissors.” In 2017, he revoked his green card in protest of Trump’s first inauguration.
The letter he received informing him of the visa cancellation stated that “additional information became available after the visa was issued” as the reason for the cancellation, but did not say what that information was.
Soyinka thinks it’s because he recently called President Trump a “white version of Idi Amin.” It is named after the dictator who ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979.
The U.S. Consulate General in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, directed all questions to the State Department Press Office in Washington, D.C., which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Soyinka jokingly called it a “love letter” and said he did not blame the authorities but had no intention of applying for a new visa.
“I don’t have a visa,” he said. “Obviously, I’m banned from the United States. If you want to see me, you know where to find me.”
