Nigerian music veteran Oladapo Oyebanjo, better known by his stage name D’banj is facing intense scrutiny and a huge social media backlash over a rape allegation that threatens to leave his legacy in tatters.
D’banj is facing the backlash over alleged use of police to try to silence Seyitan Babatayo who alleged that the singer raped her in December 2018.
The drama started when Benjamin Ese, a model scout, first alleged on Twitter that D’banj had raped his friend Babatayo at Glee Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Babatayo later came on Twitter and confirmed the claim with details of what transpired that night in a now-deleted set of 13 tweets on Wednesday, June 3, 2020.
According to her, D’banj gained entrance to her room while she was sleeping at the hotel and raped her after she had turned him down at a party earlier.
“So I slept off within 5/6 am and pls note (I’m a naked sleeper) and woke up and found Dbanj in my room already and I asked him what he was doing in my room he didn’t say a word and *asked if I was a baby* and started fingering me,” part of her tweets said.
“I went ahead to threaten him that I was going to shout. He said if I shout I’ll leave the hotel naked, Dbanj raped me.”
Busy with events to mark his 40th birthday, D’Banj remained silent on the allegation until Monday, June 15 when he put up an Instagram post to ‘address the recent false allegations and lies from the pit of hell’.
The music star through his lawyers Mike Ozekhome Chambers also demanded Babatayo to pay N100m as compensation and also a letter of apology and retract her statements which would be published in four national dailies.