Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has narrated how he was abducted and robbed during a recent visit to Bucharest, Romania, where he had travelled to attend the Sibiu International Theatre Festival.

Naijaonpoint reports that the world-renowned playwright was billed to be honoured at the festival, but his arrival in Romania quickly turned into a night of horror.

Speaking in an interview with TheNEWS/PMNEWS in Lagos, Soyinka explained that the ordeal began shortly after midnight when he landed at Bucharest Airport. Having missed the reception party meant to welcome him, he boarded what appeared to be an official taxi to his hotel.

Instead of heading to the Novotel Hotel, however, the driver veered into a deserted, dimly lit area.

Soyinka recalled, “At nearly 1 a.m., the driver stopped in an unfamiliar place and revealed a POS machine, urging me to enter my pin.”

The Nobel laureate said he stalled for nearly half an hour, deliberately entering incorrect details to buy time.

“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, hoping someone would appear, maybe someone from the hotel or a passerby. But the place was completely deserted,” he recounted.

The abductors eventually dropped him close to his hotel after extracting money from his account.

“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 said.

Soyinka expressed disappointment in the manner in which Romanian authorities handled the case, noting that the police appeared to contain the matter quietly without giving him updates.

“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 disclosed.

Though shaken, the Nobel laureate stressed that the robbery went beyond personal loss.

“It’s not just an attack on me as an individual; it’s an assault on the community,” he reiterated, adding that the incident underscored the dangers of organised crime and the need for accountability.

Despite the experience, Soyinka was safely conveyed to Sibiu the following day, where he participated in the festival.