Nigeria, May 8 -- In the world of public commentary and social media outbursts, reputations can be shattered in seconds, often on the back of misinformation, conspiracy theories, or sheer emotional outbursts. Over the past few days, the Nigerian social media space has been awash with one such firestorm, the arrest of controversial social media activist, VeryDarkMan (VDM), and the rush to accuse Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) of orchestrating the arrest.

As soon as news broke that VDM had been picked up by the police, allegations and counter-allegations began flying across digital platforms. In the heat of it all, fingers pointed directly and harshly at GTBank, with thousands of Nigerians accusing the institution of being behind his arrest....