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The American authorities has terminated the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been vocal about Trump since his earlier presidency, Soyinka stated on Tuesday.

“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very content with the termination of my visa,” Soyinka, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, informed a news conference.

Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he tore up 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 provoked a reaction and led to the US consulate’s decision.

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

According to a letter from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have revoked his visa, invoking 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 somewhat unusual love letter from an embassy,”

he lightheartedly stated while presenting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub. 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, pointing to confidentiality rules.

The present US administration has made visa revocations a signature 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 stated 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 acting like a dictator.”

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

His newest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a critique 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 escalated arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

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

The current immigration crackdown has seen national guard troops deployed to US cities and citizens briefly held as part of targeted actions, as well as the curtailing of legal means of entry.