The Romanian Incident: Police did their best to help – Soyinka

By Isa Isawade

Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has reacted to the publication on his abduction in Bucharest, Romania when he visited the country to attend the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS) and corrected that contrary to general impression that the Romanian police didn’t do enough, they in fact did their best.

In a rejoinder he sent in from Abu Dhabi, UAE on Saturday, entitled THE ROMANIAN INCIDENT: A CORRECTION, the elder statesman commended the Romanian police.

Below is his statement on the incident:

THE ROMANIAN INCIDENT: A CORRECTION

A detailed narrative of my Romanian encounter will be out soon – title: ENTER YOUR PIN: Footloose in Fear, Fame and Flashes. However, I would hate to leave dangling even in the interim a negative notion of the performance of the Romanian police in the affair, one which appears to have been implied by the interview recently published in the media. The contrary was very much the case. I even complimented them on their efficiency, crediting the swiftness of their success to the liberation of imagination acquired after the overthrow of the dictator Ceausescu. This was in reference to the fact that, following that change of regime and the drastic reformation of security agencies, a number of them took to writing as an alternative occupation. I was a guest at their first national post-Ceausescu Book Fair at which the police department had its own Book stall!

No, the major point of departure referred to in my interview had to do with a far more complex issue, one that I addressed at some length in The BURDEN OF MEMORY, The MUSE Of FORGIVENESS. Call It an issue of “double victim exaction”, it is raised yet again in the forthcoming ENTER YOUR PIN, quite different from professionalism, which was not in question in the Romanian situation. It involves also the often neglected interest of the contextual entity, in this case the Sibiu Festival community, which rose to the occasion over and beyond the norm.

Indeed, left to me, I would even begin preparations to attend the next edition, only that would be sheer frustration, knowing too well that I would only constitute a distraction, unable to enjoy the Festival offerings as a normal consumer.
Too bad!

Wole SOYINKA
Abu Dhabi,
Sept. 13, 2025