Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has revealed a harrowing experience of abduction and robbery during a visit to Bucharest, Romania.
Soyinka had traveled to the country for the prestigious Sibiu International Theatre Festival, where he was scheduled to be honored. However, his arrival quickly turned unsettling.
After landing in Bucharest past midnight, Soyinka missed the reception party meant to welcome him and boarded what appeared to be an official taxi bound for his hotel. Instead of heading straight to his destination, the driver diverted to a dark, isolated area.
“At nearly 1 a.m., the driver stopped in an unfamiliar place and produced a POS machine, demanding my pin,” Soyinka recounted. “For about 25 to 30 minutes, I deliberately entered the wrong code to buy time, hoping someone might appear. But the place was completely deserted.”
He described a tense standoff inside the vehicle as the driver repeatedly pressured him for the pin. Eventually, Soyinka was released near his hotel but discovered he had been robbed of cash.
“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,” he said.
The following day, Soyinka was escorted safely to Sibiu for the festival. However, he expressed disappointment at what he described as a muted response from Romanian authorities, criticizing police for containing the matter quietly without updating him on progress.
“There were certain aspects of the handling of the case that really troubled me, which I plan to detail in the next edition of my Intervention Series,” he added.
Soyinka emphasized that beyond personal loss, the ordeal was a disturbing violation that highlighted broader concerns about safety and accountability.
