Wole Soyinka revealed he was abducted and robbed by a taxi driver in Bucharest while en route to his hotel for the Sibiu International Theatre Festival.
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has narrated a frightening experience he encountered in Romania while attending the prestigious Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS).
Soyinka told TheNEWS that shortly after arriving in Bucharest at 12:10 a.m., he was separated from the festival’s hosts who were to receive him at the airport. Left stranded, he boarded what seemed to be an official taxi to Novotel Hotel, his designated lodging.
Instead of driving him to the hotel, the driver diverted to a deserted, dimly lit area and demanded his bank details. “So I got into the taxi and the man drove and drove… Then he brought out his POS,” Soyinka said. “I was in effect abducted, robbed, and deposited in this strange place.”
The encounter lasted nearly 30 minutes as Soyinka deliberately entered wrong PINs to delay the driver. “It became a battle of wills inside the car, which approached violence,” he recalled.
Soyinka was eventually able to reach his hotel before proceeding to Sibiu for the festival.