Ugochukwu Madu, Gistreel
The 3-year-old defamation lawsuit filed against Toke Makinwa by her ex-husband Maje Ayida has finally come to an end with court award N1m worth of damages to Ayida.
It should be recalled that Maje had dragged his ex-wife, Toke Makinwa to court after she wrote and published a book titled “On Becoming”, which Maje said contained defamatory words.
On Becoming was a book Toke wrote after her 13-year relationship and 3-year-old marriage to Maje hit the rocks and ended in divorce on Thursday, October 5, 2017.
The book detailed the highs and lows of Toke’s experiences in the relationship and how her now ex-husband got his girlfriend, Anita Solomon pregnant while married to her.
According to Maje who is a fitness expert, the book contained defamatory words, which was misleading and had subjected his personality to public ridicule.
In his lawsuit, Ayida asked Makinwa to withdraw the book from circulation, recall all copies distributed and hand them over to him for destruction.
In addition, Ayida also demanded for N100m compensation for damages in the lawsuit. He asked the court to donate damages awarded him to four charities which will be nominated by him.
Justice Ogunjobi of the Lagos State High Court at Tafawa Balewa Square who ruled on the case on Thursday November 12, stated that after careful consideration of the evidence before the court, only the contents of page 54 line 11-16 and page 83, Line 1 of the 1st defendants’ book qualified as Defamation of character.
Ruling in favour of Ayida, the Court awarded damages worth sum of 500,000 Naira 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 Toke Makinwa from producing further copies of its book with the defamatory words in pages 54 and 83.
The OAP was also given 30 days from the day of the ruling, to delete and remove the defamatory words from unsold copies of the book in her custody.
