Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has said he was not surprised by the United States’ recent move to revoke visas and green cards, insisting he had predicted such a development long ago.
Speaking in an interview, the renowned playwright revealed that he had expected these actions from the moment Donald Trump took office as president. According to him, Trump’s leadership style reflected traits of a “petty-minded dictator,” whose policies would inevitably target people he considered outsiders or adversaries.
“The first thing he will do is cancel even the green cards,” Soyinka recalled predicting years ago. He explained that Trump’s tenure exposed what he described as “the dark side of America,” marked by increased police brutality, particularly against Black people and minority groups. Soyinka said those events were fueled by divisive and hateful rhetoric that dominated Trump’s political rise.
His comments follow fresh diplomatic tension between Nigeria and the United States after Trump recently branded Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern,” accusing its government of failing to protect Christians from persecution. In a series of posts on X, the former US president warned that America would “come in gun blazing” if the Nigerian authorities did not act swiftly remarks that have stirred widespread outrage both in Nigeria and internationally.
Soyinka, who has long been an outspoken critic of Trump, was one of the first global figures to take a symbolic stand against him. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, the Nobel laureate fulfilled his promise to destroy his American Green Card. “I have already done it. I have disengaged from the United States,” he told a gathering at the University of Johannesburg, explaining that he had “a horror of what was to come with Trump.”
The celebrated writer added that he had permanently returned to Nigeria, reaffirming his decision to distance himself from the political climate in the United States.
In recent months, Washington announced a series of new visa restrictions on Nigerian citizens, limiting most non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas to single entry and a three-month validity period.
Soyinka later disclosed during a press briefing in Lagos that his B1/B2 visa had been revoked. A letter from the US Consulate, dated October 23, 2025, directed him to return the document for “physical cancellation,” a move he described as laughable.
“The letter said if I wish to travel to the United States, I must apply again to re-establish my eligibility for a new visa,” he noted, dismissing the request as bureaucratic theater.
Through it all, Soyinka maintained that none of it came as a surprise only as the fulfillment of a warning he had sounded years ago.
