Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says he was abducted and robbedin Bucharest, Romania, while attending the Sibiu International Theatre Festivalas a guest of honour. Soyinka, who had been invited by Simona-Mirela Miculescu,president of the General Assembly of UNESCO, was to receive a Walk of Fameaward at the festival. Soyinka narrated how his anticipation for the festivalturned to shock shortly after he arrived in Bucharest at about 12:10 am. Having missed the party designated to receive him at theairport, He opted to take what seemed to be an official taxi headed to theNovotel Hotel, where he was scheduled to stay. “I was to stay overnight in Bucharest and then take afive-mile drive to Sibiu. And so we missed each other somehow. As the airportwas emptying, I headed for the taxi ride,” Soyinka told TheNews/PMNews. “So I got into the taxi and the man drove and drove, andfinally we got to a spot. It was now close to 1 o’clock in the dead of thenight. And I thought we were in the hotel. Then he brought out his POS. Aconversation took place (I narrate all of that in the book). “Anyway, the bottom line is that I was in effect abducted,robbed and deposited in this strange place. I had to enter it without seeingthe POS because this man kept hiding it. He was insisting, ‘enter your pin,enter your pin’. “That drama lasted inside the taxi between 25 and 30minutes. I was deliberately entering the wrong pin, playing for time, hopingpeople would come out maybe from the hotel or be strolling around. It was oneof those times when everybody refused to come out. Completely bare where I was.No sign. “I didn’t discover it wasn’t a hotel until I finally gotdown. I was still playing for time, hoping somebody would come out of thehotel, maybe smoking cigarette, even a street worker or whatever. So, it becamea battle of wills inside the car, which approached violence – he wondering whoI was, what I was and I playing for time, hoping somebody would come along. “And then you can imagine all sorts of imagination in myhead. Why had he dropped me in this particular place? Was it a gang-infestedarea? Let’s just say it was a weird and not very comfortable kind of situation. “Eventually, that night, anyway, I got to the hotel. I waspicked up by a car and taken to Sibiu. “Even as I am speaking to you now, there is a certain aspectof that misadventure which I find very difficult to believe. Unreal. There issomething surreal about it.” According to him, while the festival organisers were shockedand the police made efforts to apprehend the suspect, he never received anyupdate on what happened afterwards. Soyinka said he expected the culprit would be brought to himfor confrontation, but the authorities appeared more interested in downplayingthe incident. “And then there was this dangerous melodrama hanging overthe whole place. So, I watched as they were trying to handle it. There weresome certain aspects that bothered me tremendously and which I have set out inthe next edition of Intervention Series, which Bookcraft is going to publishvery soon,” he said. Although still pained by the incident, Soyinka stressed thathis concern goes beyond the personal impact. “For me, it was not just me as an individual who has beenassaulted and really threatened. It was the whole community. I haven’t botheredto look closely at my account to see whether the money has been refunded,” henoted, adding that the issue was far bigger than the money stolen. “This is the least aspect of it. Not that I like to losemoney. But for me it’s much smaller.” Soyinka noted that there were enough clues to suggest theact was not carried out by one person but by a larger network operating underthe guise of an official taxi service, deliberately targeting unsuspectingvisitors. “So the affair is not concluded. I have written about it toget it off my chest. But it’s a very fundamental issue,” Soyinka added.
Don't miss out on breaking stories and in-depth articles.
