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The United States administration has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning playwright who has been vocal about Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.

“I want to tell the consulate … that I’m very content with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a news conference.

Soyinka once had permanent residency in the United States, though he tore up 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 contributed to the US consulate’s decision.

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

According to a letter from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have revoked his visa, referencing 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 rather curious love letter from an embassy,”

he jokingly remarked while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub. He also told 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, indicated it could not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality rules.

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

Soyinka mentioned 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 paying him a compliment,”

Soyinka explained. “He’s been behaving like a dictator.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has lectured 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 commentary about corruption in Nigeria, was published in 2021. Soyinka described the book as his “gift to Nigeria”.

In February, the Crucible theatre in Sheffield staged Death and the King’s Horseman.

Soyinka did not rule out to considering an invitation to the United States should circumstances change, but added: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”

He went on to denounce the ramped-up arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka emphasized. “When we see people being arrested publicly – people being taken away and they vanish for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”

The recent 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.