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The United States authorities has terminated the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been outspoken about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.

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

Soyinka formerly possessed permanent residency in the United States, though he tore up his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.

Soyinka surmised that his recent comments 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 called him in 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, invoking American government 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 jokingly remarked while reading the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic centre. He also informed 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 defining feature of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably focusing on university students who were vocal 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 worldwide recognition, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was giving him praise,”

Soyinka explained. “He’s been conducting himself as a dictator.”

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

His most recent novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a satire about corruption in Nigeria, was published in 2021. Soyinka referred to 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 added: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”

He went on to condemn the ramped-up arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

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

The current immigration crackdown has seen military personnel deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of intensive operations, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.