Raffia Palm (Raphia Hookeri) fruit epicarp biomass waste was used for the preparation of activated carbon by chemical activation using ZnCl₂. The surface characteristics of the adsorbent were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Boehm titration, iodine number and bulk density. Later on, the raphia hookeri fruit epicarp activated carbon (RHFE-AC) was employed for Direct Red 81 (DR81) dye colour removal from aqueous solutions. The experiment made up of 15 runs was setup with the help of Box-Behnken design to modelled and optimized the effects of the primary operating parameters such as adsorbent dosage (0.1-2 g), solution pH (2-10), and contact time (10-60 min), while the initial DR81 dye concentration was fixed at 100 mg/L. Analysis of variance showed that the suggested quadratic model successfully explained the experimental data with a correlation coefficient of R²=0.9997 and adjusted R²=0.9993. The optimum pH, contact time, and adsorbent dosage were determined to be 2, 60 min, and 1.73 g respectively. The predicted % removal acquired from the RSM under optimal conditions was 78.82%. A confirmatory test of the optimal conditions supported the validity of the model yielding a % removal of 80.21%. The adsorption equilibrium data were best described by the Langmuir isotherm with R²=0.96584 and the pseudo-second order kinetic model fitted the experimental data best. The study showed the pertinence of RHFE-AC utilized in batch mode for the removal of dyes.