By Abubakar M. Kareto
Nigeria’s public square has progressively degenerated from a platform of civic discourse into an arena of unbridled recklessness, where self-appointed online vigilantes metastasize from digital nuisances into full-blown national liabilities. What began as sensational street-corner drama has now crossed into economic sabotage. The disturbing emergence of Martins Vincent Otse, notoriously known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), as an unchecked megaphone on matters of statecraft, law, and macroeconomics illustrates the deep crisis facing our country. His latest theatrical onslaught against the Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s Initial Public Offering (IPO)—wildly characterizing a regulated primary market offering as a clandestine scheme to harvest ₦5,250 from poor citizens to fund a presidential election—is not just an ignorant rant. It is the latest symptom of a reckless demagogue who has made a habit of turning delicate national matters into sensationalized spectacles for an increasingly uncritical “Olodo Generation.”
The Dangote IPO controversy is merely the newest episode in an escalating history of disruptive interventions where noise replaces substance. From wading recklessly into criminal justice procedures, meddling in the tragedy of the late musician Mohbad to harass citizens with unverified allegations, to dragging senior legal luminaries like Femi Falana SAN, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Nigerian Correctional Service into sensationalized bribery claims, VDM has consistently treated institutional integrity as cheap content for views. His recent sweeping accusations targeting security agencies, accusing police officers of colluding with kidnappers along national highways, demonstrate a dangerous pattern. Rather than engaging in constructive whistleblowing or policy advocacy, he habitually manufactures unverified paranoia, degrades public trust in vital state institutions, and leaves chaos in his wake.
Now, having exhausted his brand of street-level vigilante gossip, he has presumed to lecture the country on high finance and corporate equities. To watch an untrained commentator look into a smartphone camera and confidently misrepresent a multibillion-dollar corporate equity issuance as a fraudulent political donation drive is an embarrassment to national enlightenment. An Initial Public Offering is not a church tithe, an NGO appeal, or a political extortion scheme. The Dangote Refinery public offer, structured at ₦525 per share with an entry floor of ten shares totaling ₦5,250, is an equity transaction approved and strictly regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX).
Under capital market regulations, monies pooled from the public during an IPO never touch private executive hands, political party accounts, or campaign war chests. Statutory laws require every kobo from retail subscriptions to be held in secure escrow accounts managed by licensed issuing houses, receiving banks, and accredited registrars, accessible only after formal verification, allotment audit, and definitive SEC clearance. Moreover, in a capitalization drive exceeding two trillion naira across billions of shares, retail allocations are designed to satisfy exchange free-float mandates and democratize industrial ownership among everyday Nigerians, while the financial heavy lifting is undertaken by institutional powerhouses such as pension fund administrators, development finance institutions, and asset managers.
When an everyday citizen purchases ten shares, they are acquiring fractional equity registered on their Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) account, giving them shareholder voting rights, audited asset backing, and statutory claims to future dividends. The suggestion that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, backed by extensive personal resources, institutional party structures, and sitting governors, relies on collecting ₦5,250 from ordinary citizens to fund a national campaign is laughable. Furthermore, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery operates under strict international scrutiny, financed by commercial syndicates and multilateral institutions like the African Development Bank that enforce rigorous debt covenants and audited capital allocation. Diverting corporate share sales into political campaigns would immediately breach international finance agreements, prompt severe regulatory sanctions, and trigger catastrophic loan defaults.
Why does VDM consistently view every national issue through this primitive lens? The answer lies in the classic Projection Fallacy. His entire operational blueprint is built on the mechanics of street-level crowdfunding, emotionally soliciting micro-donations of ₦100, ₦500, or ₦1,000 from his online followers to sustain his public stunts. Because his personal horizon is restricted to informal digital begging, he lacks the intellectual capacity to comprehend that a multi-billion-dollar industrial conglomerate operates under entirely different financial laws. He assumes corporate financiers and political parties raise funds using the exact same playbook he deploys on social media, mistaking a formal balance-sheet transaction for an informal street donation.
The genuine tragedy of this nuisance lies in the hundreds of thousands of young Nigerians who applaud this foolishness, cementing the dangerous rise of the “Olodo Generation.” This is an uncritical cohort bred on short-form outrage algorithms that confuse volume for authority, street arrogance for intellectual depth, and blind paranoia for investigative rigor. In this warped digital culture, verified facts and institutional processes are dismissed as elitist propaganda, while unlettered rants are canonized as gospel truth. When a nation allows its most prominent digital voice to be a megaphone of aggressive financial illiteracy, it places its economic future in profound jeopardy.
While citizens have an undeniable right to scrutinize fuel pricing, industrial policies, and regulatory transparency, deliberately poisoning public sentiment against formal capital accumulation crosses the line into economic sabotage. Historically, low retail participation in regulated capital markets has barred everyday Nigerians from building intergenerational wealth, driving millions into recurrent, unregulated Ponzi schemes. By falsely branding a legitimate corporate equity sale as a political scam, influencers like VDM ensure that the very youths cheering them remain impoverished, economically blind, and completely shut out from the formal economy. It is time to call out this digital nuisance for what it truly is: a public calamity masquerading as advocacy that must be countered with education, institutional firmness, and civic responsibility before it permanently blinds a generation.
About the Author:
Abubakar M. Kareto is a Public Affairs Analyst, Commentator, and Communications Strategist. His focus includes governance, policy, politics, economy, and media dynamics in Nigeria and Africa. He can be reached via email at amkareto@gmail.com and on X (formerly Twitter) @amkareto.
