Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has narrated how he was abducted and robbed in Bucharest, Romania, while attending the prestigious Sibiu International Theatre Festival.
The globally renowned playwright had travelled to Romania for the festival, one of the world’s largest performing arts gatherings, where he was scheduled to be honoured.
Recounting the ordeal in Lagos during an interview with TheNews, Soyinka revealed that he arrived in Bucharest shortly after midnight and boarded what appeared to be an official taxi from the airport to his hotel, Novotel.
According to him, the taxi driver diverted to a remote, dimly lit area and attempted to extort him using a POS machine.
“At nearly 1 a.m., the driver stopped in an unfamiliar place and revealed a POS machine, urging me to enter my pin,” Soyinka said.
“I had to enter it without seeing the screen because he kept hiding it. For about 25 to 30 minutes, I deliberately entered the wrong pin, buying time, hoping someone would appear — maybe someone from the hotel or a passerby. But the place was completely deserted.”
He recalled a tense confrontation with the driver, who eventually abandoned him near the hotel but not before dispossessing him of his money.
“Not that I like to lose money. But for me it’s much smaller. It’s not just an attack on me as an individual; it’s an assault on the community,” Soyinka lamented.
The incident has sparked fresh concerns about the safety of travellers in Eastern Europe, particularly the rising cases of taxi-related robberies targeting unsuspecting visitors.
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