Okoye Blessing, a tiktoker who made defamatory statements against veteran actress Eniola Badmus has been handed a three-year prison sentence.
Okoye in a TikTok video called actress Eniola a pimp and has now been sentenced to jail for cyberstalking.
The conviction was delivered by Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court following her guilty plea to two counts of cyberstalking.
The charges were found to have violated sections 24 (1) (b), (2) (a) (c), and 27 of the Cybercrimes Act, 2015.
The judge, however, granted her the option to pay a fine of ₦150,000 in lieu of imprisonment.
Between December 2022 and July 2023 in Lagos, Okoye and a person named Chimabia, who is now on the run, conspired to commit the crime.
The Tiktoker was apprehended by the actress in July after her video against Eniola Badmus went viral on social media. The video severely damaged the actress’s public image.
On July 22, 2023, Badmus had Okoye arrested on charges of defamation.
During her police interrogation, Blessing claimed that she made the defamatory statements in order to earn money for her rent. She revealed that Chimabia had offered her ₦200,000 to lie about the star.
In her own words, “So, one of my friends said if I should come out and talk about Miss Eniola Badmus that he was going to send me N200,000 because I told him about my rent. So that was what prompted the video in the first place. So I’m so sorry. I just did it because of the money. I was so desperate to pay my house rent.”
As of now, the actress, Eniola Badmus, has not yet commented on the verdict.
