Nigerian social media personality and activist, Martins Vincent Otse, widely known as VeryDarkMan, has been arrested by operatives of the Nigeria Police Force in Abuja following his public outcry over alleged unauthorized deductions from his mother’s Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) account.
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Confirming the development on Friday, his legal representative, Barrister Deji Adeyanju, told newsmen that the arrest was orchestrated at the instance of GTBank after VeryDarkMan publicly accused the bank of repeatedly debiting his mother’s account for loan repayments she never initiated.
“My client, VeryDarkMan, was arrested today in Abuja by the Nigerian police. His only offence was speaking out about suspicious and repeated debits from his mother’s GTBank account for loans she never took,” Adeyanju said.
Prior to his arrest, influencer had taken to his social media platforms to call out GTBank, alleging that over seven separate deductions had been made from his mother’s account this year alone under the guise of loan repayments. He accompanied the claims with a visit to a GTBank branch in Abuja where he demanded a detailed bank statement to trace the origin of the charges.
“We just arrived at GTBank to get an explanation for the constant debit from my mom’s account by GTBank in the name of loan repayments that she never took,” he wrote in a widely circulated post. “So far this year alone, there have been more than seven debits for loan repayments. GTBank staff are cooperating—hopefully, we’ll find out why they keep doing this.”
The arrest has since sparked outrage among supporters and civil society observers who view it as a suppression of free speech and a growing pattern of institutions using law enforcement to silence dissatisfied customers.
This is not the first time GTBank has been at the center of such controversy. SaharaReporters had earlier reported a similar case involving Ariyo Ahmed Adewale, a Lagos resident, who claimed he was arrested after staging a protest inside a GTBank branch in Kosofe over the alleged disappearance of more than ₦2 million from his account.
Ariyo said he discovered unauthorized transactions linked to the e-commerce platform Jumia—a service he insists he has never used. Despite his efforts to get answers and access to detailed account statements, he alleged that he was met with resistance and ultimately arrested after visiting the bank.
“I didn’t authorise any purchases or payments, and my card was with me the entire time,” Ariyo said. “My phone was also with me—nobody else had access to it.”
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