Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has narrated how he was abducted and robbed during a visit to Bucharest, Romania, where he had been invited as a guest of honour at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival.
Gatekeepers News reports that the playwright, who was to receive a Walk of Fame award at the festival on the invitation of Simona-Mirela Miculescu, president of the General Assembly of UNESCO, said the incident occurred shortly after he arrived in Bucharest at about 12:10 am.
According to Soyinka, he missed the reception party at the airport and decided to board an official taxi to the Novotel Hotel.
He told the news/PMNews, “I was to stay overnight in Bucharest and then take a five-mile drive to Sibiu. And so we missed each other somehow. As the airport was emptying, I headed for the taxi ride.”
Soyinka explained that the supposed taxi driver drove him around before demanding he input his bank card pin through a concealed POS machine.
He said, “So I got into the taxi and the man drove and drove, and finally we got to a spot. It was now close to 1 o’clock in the dead of the night. And I thought we were in the hotel. Then he brought out his POS… Anyway, the bottom line is that I was in effect abducted, robbed and deposited in this strange place.”
The Nobel laureate recounted how he tried to delay the driver by deliberately entering the wrong pin.
He said, “That drama lasted inside the taxi between 25 and 30 minutes. I was deliberately entering the wrong pin, playing for time, hoping people would come out maybe from the hotel or be strolling around. It was one of those times when everybody refused to come out. Completely bare where I was. No sign.”
Soyinka added that it was only after alighting that he realised he had not been taken to a hotel.
He said, “I didn’t discover it wasn’t a hotel until I finally got down… So, it became a battle of wills inside the car, which approached violence – he wondering who I was, what I was and I playing for time, hoping somebody would come along.”
Reflecting on the ordeal, Soyinka described it as both surreal and disturbing. He said, “ Even as I am speaking to you now, there is a certain aspect of that misadventure which I find very difficult to believe. Unreal. There is something surreal about it.”
Although the festival organisers and police expressed concern, Soyinka said he was never updated on the outcome of the case, adding that the matter extends beyond personal loss.
He said, “I expected the culprit would be brought to me for confrontation, but the authorities seemed more interested in downplaying the incident.”
Soyinka said, “For me, it was not just me as an individual who has been assaulted and really threatened. It was the whole community. I haven’t bothered to look closely at my account to see whether the money has been refunded. This is the least aspect of it. Not that I like to lose money. But for me it’s much smaller.”
He added that the crime may have been orchestrated by a wider criminal network preying on unsuspecting visitors under the guise of taxi services.
The playwright stressed, “So the affair is not concluded. I have written about it to get it off my chest. But it’s a very fundamental issue.”
