By Pascal Ibe
Claim
Facebook pages claimed that the Guaranty Trust (GBT) is planning to shut down some of its branches over the arrest of VeryDarkMan.
Verdict
This claim is FALSE. Checks on the official social media handle of the bank showed no announcements or posts relating to this claim were shared there. Also, no credible news outlet confirmed this to be untrue.
Full Text
Martins Vincent Otse, a social commentator known as VeryDarkMan, was arrested shortly after visiting a Guaranty Trust Bank branch in Abuja on Friday alongside Stephen Avuara, his friend, and in the presence of his mother, by some agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
Til this moment, the EFCC has yet to issue a press release on the reason for his arrest.
Reacting, many fans of the activist(Ratels) have accused the Guaranty Trust bank (GTB) of having a hand in the arrest of VeryDarkMan.
Some of them have already threatened to withdraw funds from the bank and close down their accounts. While others vowed to continue to protest till the release of the activist.
Regarding this, some Facebook pages have claimed that GT Bank planned to shut down its branches over VeryDarkMan’s arrest. The Facebook pages claimed that this was a result of fear of being attacked.
Music base Africa on Facebook wrote, “🚨💔 Breaking News
“GT Bank has just announced that they will be closing some of their activities in the country for 4 days following the recent situation which involved the arr£st of VDM!
“Over 100,000 Nigerians have emptied their accounts with the bank in the last 24 hours, and their official pages have received over 13,000 rep0rts from Nigerians since yesterday!
“Things are not looking good!
“GT Bank fe-ars something might happen to their workers as the situation keeps escalating on the internet!
“Stay Tuned!
This claim was also published here.
The post which has already generated hundreds of comments and reactions, had been believed to be true by Facebook users.
Verification
First, a thorough search by FACTWATCH Nigeria showed no credible news organization in Nigeria reported the alleged announcement of the closure of GT Bank branches at any time.
Since Friday, when the arrest happened, GT Bank has shared many posts on its Facebook page and X account. However, these posts do not point to closing some of the bank’s branches over fear of being attacked.
Also, no sources from the bank have confirmed this till this moment.
Conclusion
There’s no credible news report to corroborate the claim that GT Bank is planning to shut down some of its branches over VeryDarkMan’s arrest.
