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The American government has cancelled the visa for Wole Soyinka, the celebrated Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author who has been vocal about Trump since his earlier presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.

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

Soyinka once had permanent residency in the United States, though he destroyed 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 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 review his visa, which he said he would not attend.

According to a letter from the consulate directed at Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, invoking United States regulations that permit “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 humorously remarked while reading 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, stated it could not comment on individual cases, referencing confidentiality rules.

The present US administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider clampdown on immigration, notably targeting university students who were outspoken about Palestinian rights.

Soyinka revealed 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 conducting himself as 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 latest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a critique about corruption in Nigeria, was published in 2021. Soyinka called 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 accepting 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 increased arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

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

The recent immigration crackdown has seen security forces deployed to US cities and citizens briefly held as part of intensive operations, as well as the curtailing of legal means of entry.