Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has recounted how he was abducted and robbed during a visit to Bucharest, Romania, while attending the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS), one of the world’s largest theatre festivals.
In an exclusive interview with PM News on September 9 in Lagos, Soyinka said he had traveled to Romania as Guest of Honour to receive a star on the Walk of Fame award at the festival, invited by the President of UNESCO’s General Assembly, Amb. Simona-Mirela Miculescu.
However, things went wrong soon after he landed in Bucharest at 12:10 a.m. Soyinka said he missed his scheduled pick-up and decided to take an official taxi to the Novotel hotel where he was to stay before traveling to Sibiu the next morning.
Instead, he was taken to a remote location where the driver, who Soyinka believes was part of a criminal gang, tried to rob him using a POS machine. Soyinka was forced to reveal his PIN but deliberately entered the wrong one, trying to buy time while hoping for help.
“The driver kept insisting, ‘enter your PIN,’ but I played for time, hoping someone would come out,” Soyinka recalled. “It was a bare, deserted place. Completely unnerving.”
After about 25–30 minutes of tension, Soyinka finally reached his hotel and later continued to Sibiu. He described the ordeal as surreal and said that while the police tried to address the situation, he never got full closure on what happened to the perpetrator.
Soyinka emphasized that the incident was not just about him but highlighted broader issues of crime and safety for the community and visitors. “It’s not just about losing money. It’s about the threat to innocent people,” he said, noting that there were signs of a larger network operating under the guise of official taxi services.
The experience has been included in his upcoming book in the Intervention Series, which aims to shed light on such issues.
