Why VeryDarkMan was arrested – Deji Adeyanju

The human rights lawyer and activist Deji Adeyanju, has revealed that social media activist VeryDarkMan (VDM) was arrested by police officers at a Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) branch in Abuja.

Adeyanju confirmed the incident in a post via X (formerly Twitter) on Friday

The arrest followed reports from Koko Pee, VDM’s associate, who raised an alarm on Instagram about the social media critic’s sudden disappearance after visiting the bank with his mother.

Prior to his arrest, VDM had revealed that he accompanied his mother to GTBank to address “unauthorised withdrawals from her account”.

He claimed the deductions were labeled as “loan repayments,” despite his mother never taking any loans.

VDM also shared the purported screenshots showing the debit alerts.

“Myself and my mom just arrived @gtbank to get an explanation for the constant debit from her account from gt bank in the name of loan repayments that she never took, in this year alone see the amount of time she has been debited with different amounts we have requested her bank statements,” he wrote.

“So we know when they debiting started so far in this year alone there have been more than 7 debits on loan repayments, GT BANK STAFF ARE COOPERATING, hopefully we know why they keep doing this.”

According to Adeyanju, VDM was arrested alongside a friend, identified as C Park, while his mother was left behind.

The lawyer condemned the arrest, insisting that demanding accountability from a bank should not be criminalised.

“VDM arrested by the police at GTB. Spoke to them before he was arrested. This is absolutely unacceptable. Demanding accountability is not a crime,” he wrote.

“We will sue GTB and the security agencies responsible for the arrest of VDM if he’s not released with immediate effect.”

The lawyer later updated that legal representatives had located VDM and were working to secure his release.

“We have located VDM and working on getting him out. Our lawyers are now with him,” he wrote.