Nigeria’s Nobel Prize-winning author, Wole Soyinka, said on Tuesday that the United States had revoked his non-immigrant visa issued last year, and that he had been informed he must reapply should he wish to visit the U.S. again.
The 91-year-old writer had torn up his U.S. green card and renounced his American residency in 2016 in protest of the election of President Donald Trump. The Nobel laureate has held regular teaching appointments at American Ivy League universities since the mid-1990s, following his Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.
“The moment they announce his victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up,” Soyinka had said.
On Tuesday, Soyinka presented reporters with a letter from the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos requesting that he bring in his passport for the physical cancellation of his visa.
The letter, dated 23 October, stated that “additional information became available” after the visa had been issued. The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I have no visa; I am obviously banned from the United States, and if you want to see me, you know where to find me,” Soyinka said, addressing those who might have planned to invite him to events in the U.S.
The U.S. Department of State updated its reciprocal nonimmigrant visa policy. Effective today, most nonimmigrant & non-official visas for Nigerian citizens will be single-entry with 3-month validity. Visas issued before July 8, 2025 remain unchanged.
Read more here:… pic.twitter.com/bpds5XEQBT— U.S. Mission Nigeria (@USinNigeria) July 8, 2025
In July, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria announced that Nigerians applying for non-immigrant visas would now receive single-entry, three-month permits, rolling back the previous policy that had allowed multiple-entry, up to 5-year visas.
