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The US government has terminated the visa for Wole Soyinka, the celebrated Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been critical about Trump since his initial presidency, Soyinka disclosed on Tuesday.

“I want to inform the consulate … that I’m very satisfied with the cancellation of my visa,” Soyinka, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a press briefing.

Soyinka formerly possessed 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 played a role in the US consulate’s decision.

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

According to a letter from the consulate addressed to Soyinka, officials have terminated his visa, invoking United States regulations that authorize “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 quite peculiar love letter from an embassy,”

he jokingly remarked while reciting the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic centre. He also told any organizations hoping to invite him to the United States “not to waste their time”.

“I have no visa. I am banned,” Soyinka declared.

The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, indicated it could not comment on individual cases, pointing to confidentiality rules.

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

Soyinka mentioned he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he remarked Trump “should be proud of”.

“Idi Amin was a man of international stature, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was showing him respect,”

Soyinka said. “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 awarded honours top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.

His newest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a commentary 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 remained open to considering 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 escalated arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“This is not about me,” Soyinka declared. “When we see people being picked off the street – people being hauled up and they are held for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what troubles me.”

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