A  week ago, Seyitan Babatayo accused musician Dapo Oyebanjo also known as Dbanj of r*ping her. In a series of tweet-thread, she detailed the events that took place in December 2018. According to her, she attended an all-white rendezvous party in Eko Atlantic on December 30th.

 

She left to pass the night in Glee Hotel, Victoria Island, and woke up to see Dbanj inside her room. When she asked what he was doing there, he told her “not to be a baby” and proceeded to r*pe her.

 

In the morning, she learned that he’d gained access to her room with the help of an extra key card pass. Accordingly, Glee Hotel was one where he ( Dbanj) lodged his staff. She also attached a WhatsApp screenshot chat of his ex-manager named Franklin admitting that Dbanj had indeed r*ped her.

Neither Dbanj nor his management responded to the accusations at the time and after a few days, all was quiet and internet goers moved on to the next “hot story”. But, Dbanj brought everyone’s attention back a week after. On July 16th, he released a statement to say the accusations were “lies from the pit of hell”.

 

According to him, he’s handed over the “ludicrous lies” to his legal team and the police are investigating the criminal aspect of it. “… I would like to state that This Accusation are false and ludicrous and Have been handed over to my Legal Team, while the Nigerian Police is Investigating the Criminal aspect of it.” part of the statement read.

 

He also did not fail to remind the public that the accusations are coming a few weeks shy of the anniversary of the loss of his dear son Alex and the “well-timed falsehood has reopened the painful scars” of his “deep loss”. In the case Dbanj filed, Seyitan Babatayo is to tender an open apology with an N100 Million compensation.

On the evening of Tuesday 17th, journalist Kiki Mordi tweeted that his accuser, Seyitan had been arrested and detained by the police and she’s being denied legal representation and access to her phones and family. Her tweets read:

“Yesterday at about noon, Seyitan was and is still detained in Sodipo Ikeja and hasn’t been granted access to friends, family or lawyer lawyers”. 

“I have reason to believe his deal has been delayed (which is the right thing to do) and this has led to D’Banj and his team coming after everyone including his ex-manager who corroborated Seyitan’s story.

I spoke to her lawyers and they also have reason to believe she’s being coerced to recant her accusations but with no one having access to her, it’s difficult to ascertain! They have applied for bail and our fingers are crossed.

I maintain that there is NO reason she has been held for that long in a police cell. She is not the first woman who has ended up in jail for telling their abuse story in the past couple of weeks! Everyone asking how we can help. We don’t know. We can’t reach her for now.” 

But @OdunEweniyi has reached out me and a lot of amazing women like @OmogeDami @AyodejiOsowobi @darlingdami are raising money for legal counsel, bail, etc” 

Further information was later received that she was being detained alongside her mum for more than 24hrs, which is illegal. The COO of Pigggvest Odunayo Eweniyi quoted Kiki Mordi’s to say funds were being rallied to post bail for Seyitan. However, the crimes she was being charged with were unsure at the time.

“Seyitan has been asked to post bail. as in Nigeria, we don’t know how much she’ll be charged. Someone has donated N500,000 to begin to cover the cost of legal representation for her. Women should be able to speak without fear of intimidation”

An hour afterward, @seyitannn_ tweeted she was “done with the drama” and wanted everything to end.

Some replies especially the ones pointing out she may have been coerced were also hidden with the twitter hide replies feature. She was finally released in the wee hours of Tuesday according to Gender activist Ayodeji Osowobi.