Dakar, Senegal
AP
—
Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka mentioned on Tuesday that his non-resident visa to enter the United States had been rejected, including that he believes it might be as a result of he not too long ago criticized US President Donald Trump.
The Nigerian author, 91, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, changing into the primary African to take action.
Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Soyinka mentioned he believed it had little to do with him and was as a substitute a product of the United States’ immigration insurance policies. He mentioned he was informed to reapply if he wished to enter once more.
“It’s not about me, I’m not really interested in going back to the United States,” he mentioned. “But a principle is involved. Human beings deserve to be treated decently wherever they are.”
Soyinka, who has taught within the US 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 Trump’s first inauguration.
The letter he obtained informing him of his visa revocation cites “additional information became available after the visa was issued,” as the rationale for its revocation, however doesn’t describe what that data was.
Soyinka believes it might be as a result of he not too long ago referred to Trump as a “white version of Idi Amin,” a reference to the dictator who dominated Uganda from 1971 till 1979.
The US Consulate in Nigeria’s industrial hub, Lagos, directed all inquiries to the State Department press workplace in Washington, DC, which didn’t reply to fast requests for remark.
Soyinka jokingly referred to it as a “love letter” and mentioned that whereas he didn’t blame the officers, he wouldn’t be making use of for one more visa.
“I have no visa,” he mentioned. “I am banned, obviously, from the United States, and if you want to see me, you know where to find me.”