U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (not pictured) in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 29, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
A Nobel Prize winner who compared President Donald Trump to a dictator and had his U.S. Visa revoked, referred to receiving a “rather curious love letter from the embassy," mocked the president, and said he must have "struck a nerve."
Nigerian author and playwright Wole Soyinka, 91, was speaking to reporters in Lagos, Nigeria, when he mentioned that the U.S. consulate asked him to bring his visa and passport so it could be voided, The Daily Beast reported Tuesday. Soyinka was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.
"I like people who have a sense of humour, and this is one of the most humorous sentences or requests I’ve had in all my life,” Soyinka said.
“Would any of you like to volunteer in my place? Take the passport for me? I’m a little bit busy and rushed,” he joked.
The Nigerian Nobel laureate compared Trump to brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who is estimated to have killed as many as 500,000 people during his regime from 1971 to 1979. The writer speculated that the comparison "might have struck a nerve and contributed to the U.S. consulate’s decision." He even thanked the administration for taking it.
“Idi Amin was a man of international stature, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was paying him a compliment,” Soyinka said, joking that the president should "be proud" of that comparison.
“He’s been behaving like a dictator," he added.
Soyinga had previously held permanent residency in the U.S. until he destroyed his green card in protest of Trump's first term, according to the report.