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The American administration has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been outspoken about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka stated on Tuesday.

“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very satisfied 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 speculated that his recent remarks comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and played a role in the US consulate’s decision.

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

According to a communication from the consulate addressed to Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, referencing US state department 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 quite peculiar love letter from an embassy,”

he humorously commented while reciting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic centre. He also advised any organizations hoping to invite him to the United States “not to waste their time”.

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

The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, said it could not comment on individual cases, pointing to 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 vocal about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka revealed he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he said 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 said. “He’s been conducting himself as a dictator.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has worked for 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 critique 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 remained open to accepting an invitation to the United States should circumstances change, but continued: “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 disappear for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what troubles me.”

The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen military personnel deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of aggressive raids, as well as the limiting of legal means of entry.