Nigeria’s Nobel Prize-winning author, Prof. Wole Soyinka, said on Tuesday that the United States had revoked his non-immigrant visa issued last year and instructed him to reapply if he wished to visit again.
Speaking to reporters in Lagos, the 91-year-old literary icon displayed a letter from the U.S. Consulate General dated 23 October, requesting that he submit his passport for physical cancellation of the visa. The letter stated that “additional information became available” after the visa was issued.
Soyinka, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, has been a frequent visiting lecturer at Ivy League universities in the U.S. since the mid-1990s. However, he famously renounced his American residency in 2016 after tearing up his U.S. green card in protest at the election of former President Donald Trump.
“I have no visa; I am banned obviously from the United States. If you want to see me, you know where to find me,” Soyinka told journalists, referring to those who might wish to invite him to future events in the U.S.
The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria has yet to comment on the development. In July, the embassy announced new restrictions limiting Nigerians seeking non-immigrant visas to single-entry, three-month permits, a rollback from the previous five-year, multiple-entry visas.
