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The US government has terminated the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been outspoken about Trump since his earlier presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.

“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very pleased with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who received the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a news conference.

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 struck a nerve and contributed to 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 said he would not attend.

According to a letter from the consulate addressed to Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, referencing United States 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 humorously stated while presenting 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 said.

The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, indicated it could not comment on individual cases, referencing 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 said he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he said Trump “should be proud of”.

“Idi Amin was a man of international stature, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was giving him praise,”

Soyinka explained. “He’s been acting 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 remained open to entertaining 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 denounce the escalated arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka emphasized. “When we see people being detained arbitrarily – people being apprehended and they disappear for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”

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