A high court sitting in Lagos has ordered the publisher of ladunladi.blogspot.com, to pay the sum of ten million Naira(N10m), as damages to the CEO, Anabel Group, Nicholas Okoye, over defamatory publications.
Justice A. A . Akintoye, delivering her judgment in SUIT NO: LD/170/2012, stated that the Ladun Ladi, started the chain Of events on her blog which led to Okoye being abused and ridiculed by members of the public who read the story.
The court faulted her for not deleting the disparaging comment immediately, which she has the power to do.
The court, therefore, found the publication and transmission of the libel story contained on pages 1-24 of Friday 6th to 12th April 2012, as defamatory to Okoye.
The court agreed with the 2nd and 3rd Defendants that they would not have known that the publication was defamatory, given the large volume of words and the speed with which they were posted.
“Therefore, it became humanly impossible for Defendant to detect and prevent publications that have reformatory contents.
“A close perusal of the evidence presented before the court shows that the 2nd Defendant was not the author, editor or publisher of the defamatory post.
“The 2nd Defendant could only have become aware of the alleged defamatory post when it received the claimant’s written complaint after the 1st Defendant had deleted the post.
“The 2nd Defendant could only have become aware of the alleged defamatory post when it received the claimant’s written complaint after the 1st Defendant had deleted the post.
“The 2nd Defendant’s lack of knowledge of the post was not due to negligence on its part.
“I hereby grant a perpetual injunction restraining the 1st Defendant Ladun Liadi whether by herself, her servant, agents and/or privies or otherwise from publishing and/or further publishing and/or causing to be published the same or similar words defamatory to the claimant in any medium and/or from whosoever.
“Cost is awarded in the sum of N1,000,000, for legal representation inclusive of the cost of action in favour of the claimant. No award of cost is made for the 2nd & 3rd Defendants.
A commentator had made a derogatory comment to a post-Ladun Ladi, published on the 6th of April 2012, via her blog, Ladunladi.blogspot.com, titled: “What happened to Anabel Mobile”.
The commentator made the following disparaging remarks against the claimant:
“The claimant pays runs girls N150,000, for sex as well as keeping 2 names mistresses (Anita and Liman Unachukwu). That the claimant is a dog’ who keeps mistresses and has special runs girls. That the claimant’s wife is benching outside with tall fair girls,” and some more derogatory words.
Other Defendants in the suit are, Google Inc and Google Nigeria.
