Alleged Rape: D’Banj Loses Endorsement Deals, As Rape Saga Gets Messier

By Akinwale Kasali

The rape allegation levelled against Kokomaster, Oladapo Daniel Oyebanji, popularly known as D’Banj is getting messier by the day as activist social media users and Influencers are demanding that he loses his ambassadorial contract with the United Nations.

Also, unconfirmed reports say  Heritage Bank has, allegedly,  suspended its relationship with him, following the rape allegation leveled against him by a certain lady called Seyitan.

Seyitan had accused the Koko Master of sexually assaulting her in December, 2018, at her hotel room.

She alleged that  D’Banj drove to her hotel to   assault and rape her, having driven from his Eko Hotel Suite at Victoria Island where he lodged in 2018 to her own hotel room not too far from hers.

She is threatening legal action against the singer if he doesn’t tender a public apology to her.

D’banj denies the allegation and, demanded  his accuser pays him the sum of N100 million and publish an open apology in Nigerian dailies, or face legal action.

However, Nigerians, including celebrities, were outraged when Seyitan’s lawyers raised an alarm that she was arrested by police on Tuesday on orders from D’banj’s team and that she was detained and denied access to friends, family and her lawyers.

She was also allegedly forced into deleting her tweets and recant her initial statement.

The development led to many calling on brands associated with the singer to cancel him for intimidating his accuser and suppressing her instead of going through the right path to prove his innocence, since he claims to be clean.

Meanwhile, a petition to compel the United Nations to remove the singer as its Youth Ambassador has also gotten over 15,000 signatures.

Also, Popular On Air Personality, Vimbai Mutinhiri, has taken a decision not to work with the Nigerian singer anymore until he clears his name following the rape allegation leveled against him.

Sharing a screenshot of the conversation she had with her organization, Vimbai said they have reached an agreement that D’banj would not be involved in any of their events until his name is cleared.

Taking to the photo-sharing, the media personality captioned the post; “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. – Desmond Tutu.

“We have to allow the wheels of justice to turn, but until then we have to stand in alliance with the process of justice because we don’t know which one of us may need the credibility of that process to fight for us tomorrow…

“Thank you to this organization for choosing to let things play out.”

Reacting to the arrest of Seyitan by D’Banj, Singer cum Politician, Olubankole Wellington, popularly known as Banky W, has given his thoughts on the rape allegation against the 40-year old D’Banj.

The 39-year-old Banky W condemned the alleged arrest and intimidation of the accuser, Seyitan Babatayo, and expressed hope that justice will be served in the case.

Taking to Twitter on Friday, Banky W wrote: “The news lately has been so hard to read, but we must never support the oppressing or silencing of victims by the Police.

“If Dbanj truly was being falsely accused, then a ‘defamation of character’ lawsuit was the right move – but that’s where it should have stopped.”

“Whether it was overzealous police officers/Dbanj/his handlers that orchestrated it – locking Seyitan and/or her Mom in jail, seizing her phone, preventing her from reaching her lawyers/family etc is completely wrong – and I hope Dbanj will denounce it himself.

“We all saw the video that showed a sitting Senator physically assaulting a woman and then having her arrested. Victims will never speak up against oppression if we allow the system to silence them. Civil cases must be decided by the courts, never by the abuse of the Police Force”.

Meanwhile, there have been calls on the Inspector General of Police, Mohammad Adamu, to wade into the matter by ordering   an  Investigation to get to the root of the matter, and unravel the truth.