A Lagos state high court on Wednesday delivered the much-anticipated verdict in the defamation lawsuit against Toke Makinwa, filed by her Ex-husband Maje Ayida.
Ayida who is a fitness coach had filed the lawsuit in 2017 because of Makinwa‘s portrayal of him in her 2016 tell-all memoir On Becoming. She had accused him of being a serial cheat and an adulterer. She also claimed that he gave her sexually transmitted diseases.
The entrepreneur through his lawyers had demanded Makinwa stops the promotion and sale of her book adding that the popular book contained “defamatory words.”
“Withdraw from circulation all copies of the book and take immediate steps to call in all copies of the book already distributed and deliver up same at the place to be agreed upon by our client for destruction” read the letter from Maje‘s lawyers.
Ayida also noted the book brought “public ridicule” to him, and stated his reputation has been “assaulted, injured and damaged.”
He threatened legal action against Toke Makinwa if she failed to retract her published words and apologise in three national newspapers.
However, in his judgment, Justice Ogunjobi ruled in favour of Ayida, stating that available evidence before the court, it finds the contents of page 54 line 11-16 and page 83, Line 1 of Makinwa‘s book as Defamatory.
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The court granted damages of the sum of N500,000 each to be paid by the 1st and 2nd defendants to any charity organization of the claimant’s choice.
It also granted an injunction preventing the defendants from producing copies of the book with the defamatory words in the said pages.
In addition, the court gave Toke Makinwa 30 days from its judgment to delete and remove the said defamatory words from the unsold copies of the book in her custody.
