A United Kingdom High Court of Justice has registered the N500 million damages entered in favour of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries and the church’s general overseer, Dr. Daniel Olukoya, by an Ogun State High Court against Maureen Badejo – a UK-based blogger.
The judgment was registered today, Tuesday, March 30, 2021.
By this development, the judgement of the Hon. Justice A. A. Adeyemi becomes, for all intents and purposes, judgement of the Queens Bench Division and will soon be executed on the judgment-debtor, Maureen Badejo, in that country.
The statement reads:
“MFM/Olukoya N500m Judgement against Maureen Badejo in the United Kingdom – Awaiting Execution
The judgement of the High Court of Ogun State delivered on Tuesday February 9, 2021 by which damages of N500 million was awarded to MFM and the General Overseer, Dr. Daniel K. Olukoya, against Maureen Badejo for aggravated libel, has been duly registered in the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom.”
The judge who delivered the N500m judgment described the report as the worst case of reckless defamation and evil use of the internet and social media.
Badejo, anchor person in the Facebook-GIO TV, had published what the Incorporated Trustees of MFM and Olukoya, described as many lies.
She was said to have reported that Olukoya defrauded the government of United States by selling his books in America without paying the due tax on the books, while Elijah Toluwani Olukoya (Olukoya’s son) had N6bn in Heritage Bank in Nigeria.
GIO TV, among others, had reported that a particular pastor from MFM in UK paid £150,000 into the personal account of Olukoya and then went to Nigeria to meet the cleric so he could help him cover up his fraud.
Delivering his ruling in a N10bn libel suit filed by Ime Nya Asanga, claimant’s counsel, Justice Akinyemi awarded N250m to each of the claimants (making a total of N500m) as aggravated and exemplary damages for libel.
The judge also ordered Badejo to “immediately pull down and erase each of the offending online publications/posts concerning the claimants from the internet.”
She was also ordered to “tender a written apology and retraction of the offending publications and posts in a form and content acceptable to the claimants and published prominently in her Facebook, YouTube and Instagram accounts and in at least three nationally circulating newspapers in Nigeria and two international magazines, including TIME International, forthwith.”
The Spokesperson for Olukoya, Collins Edomaruse, quoted Asanga on Saturday as saying that a certified true copy of the judgment and its certificate with Form 35 endorsed thereon, had been served vide DHL courier with proof of service indicated that Badejo had received the court judgment.
We could see that all the efforts to take a Nigerian high court judgment to the UK is not about getting N500m damages from the defendant because they know they cannot get any fraction of it from her.
The intention of the efforts may be to show the world that the Pastor and all the others mentioned did not do all those things alleged to have been published by GIO TV and its promoters.
Photo: Maureen Badejo, BIO TV