Court Awards N25million Damages Against Celebrity Blogger Linda Ikeji In Defamation Suit

A Federal Capital Territory High Court on Tuesday, 12^th of April, 2022 delivered judgement against popular Nigerian blogger, Linda Ikeji in suit number FCT/CV/667/2018: Mrs Ajibola Ajayi v. Linda Ikeji  over claims of defamation on the personality of the Claimant.

The news of the judgement was announced by the Law firm on Olaniwun Ajayi LP on its official twitter page where its took credit for prosecuting the case for the Claimant.

In the court case, the Mrs Ajibola Ajayi had sued Ms. Linda Ikeji in respect of the defamatory article published on her blog, http://lindaikejiblog.com in January of 2017 which cited Mrs. Ajibola Ajayi as having described protesting students of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, as a “generation of mannerless children” in an Instagram post with the username “conceited_csj”.

In its judgement the Court held that the publication by Ms. Ikeji was false and malicious and that the evidence before the Court showed that the Defendant knew that the Instagram account with the username “conceited_csj” did not belong to the Claimant.

The Court further held that the publication was made available to readers worldwide which exposed the Claimant to ridicule by members of the public who read the offending article.

In reiterating the trite principle of law that libel is actionable per se, the Court awarded general and exemplary damages in the sum of N25,000,000.00 (Twenty-Five Million Naira) against Ms. Linda Ikeji and directed Ms. Ikeji to publish a written apology to the Claimant in three National tabloids.

However, the judgement has not gone that well with the blogger who took to the comment section of the Law firm’s post to abuse and throw tantrums on them.

She responded; “You’re such an idiot lawyer. I hear you’re an inexperienced 26 year old? How can you file in Lagos and Abuja on the same issue? And then you don’t even inform me? Hope you’re ready for Appeal and Supreme Court and a countersue? Tell your client to get ready!”

Her comment has since sparked reactions from a cross section of Twitter users who have encouraged her to be mindful of her language against the firm, informing her that the firm is an elite Nigerian law firm and not an inexperienced 26 year old as she claimed.

Linda further rubbished their advice, as she said she can pay 100 lawyers to deal with the firm on Appeal.

As at the time of this report, the tweet is still generating reactions.