A High Court sitting at Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos State, presided over by Hon Justice Ogunjobi on Thursday ruled in favour of Maje Ayida, a fitness entrepreneur and estranged husband of Toke Makinwa over a defamation lawsuit against her.
Recall that in 2017, a report that surfaced online said Ayida’s lawyers had written a "letter of demand" to Makinwa asking her to stop the promotion and sale of the memoir "On Becoming."
In the lawsuit, Ayida claimed that the book was misleading and contained defamatory words, thereby subjecting him to public ridicule.
Ayida in the letter, asked Makinwa, among other things, to withdraw the book from circulation, recall all copies distributed and hand them over to him for destruction.
The letter also stated that failure by Makinwa to take back the words said in the book, and give a full-page apology to Ayida in three national newspapers, would lead to the commencement of legal action.
The court in its judgment held that after careful consideration of the evidence before the court, it finds only the contents of page 54 line 11-16 and page 83, Line 1 of the 1st defendant's book as defamatory.
The court thereafter 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.
The court also granted an injunction preventing the defendants from producing copies of its book with the defamatory words on pages 54 and 83.
Furthermore, the court also gave the defendant 30 days from its judgment to delete and remove the said defamatory words from unsold copies of the book in the defendant’s custody.
