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The US administration has cancelled the visa for Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been vocal about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka announced on Tuesday.

“I want to tell the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the termination of my visa,” Soyinka, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, addressed a media gathering.

Soyinka once had permanent residency in the United States, though he discarded his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.

Soyinka speculated that his recent comments comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have caused offense and contributed to the US consulate’s decision.

Soyinka mentioned earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had summoned him for an interview to reevaluate his visa, which he said he would not attend.

According to a document from the consulate addressed to Soyinka, officials have revoked his visa, citing American government regulations that allow “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 commented while reciting 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, said it could not comment on individual cases, pointing to confidentiality rules.

The existing US administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably targeting university students who were expressive 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 said. “He’s been acting like a dictator.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has taught at and been recognized by top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.

His most recent novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a commentary 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 did not rule out to accepting 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 denounce 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 taken away and they vanish for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what worries me.”

The ongoing immigration crackdown has seen national guard troops deployed to US cities and citizens short-term arrested as part of aggressive raids, as well as the restricting of legal means of entry.