Nobel-Winning Author Says His U.S. Visa Was Revoked After Jab About Trump

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka stated on Tuesday that his non-resident visa to enter america had been rejected, including that he believes it might be as a result of he lately criticized U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Nigerian writer, 91, gained the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, changing into the primary African to take action.

Chatting with the press on Tuesday, Soyinka stated he believed it had little to do with him and was as an alternative a product of america’ immigration insurance policies.

He stated he was advised to reapply if he wished to enter once more.

“It’s not about me, I’m not likely excited by going again to america,” he stated. “However a precept is concerned. Human beings need to be handled decently wherever they’re.”

Soyinka, who has taught within the U.S. and beforehand held a inexperienced card, joked on Tuesday that his inexperienced card “had an accident” eight years in the past and “fell between a pair of scissors.”

In 2017, he destroyed his inexperienced card in protest of President Trump’s first inauguration.

The letter he obtained informing him of his visa revocation cites “extra info turned accessible after the visa was issued,” as the rationale for its revocation, however doesn’t describe what that info was.

Soyinka believes it might be as a result of he lately referred to Trump as a “white model of Idi Amin,” a reference to the dictator who dominated Uganda from 1971 till 1979.

The U.S. Consulate in Nigeria’s industrial hub, Lagos, directed all inquiries to the State Division press workplace in Washington, D.C., which didn’t reply to speedy requests for remark.

Soyinka jokingly referred to it as a “love letter” and stated that whereas he didn’t blame the officers, he wouldn’t be making use of for an additional visa. “I’ve no visa. I’m banned, clearly, from america, and if you wish to see me, you already know the place to seek out me.”