Maje Ayida wins defamation suit against Toke Makinwa, awarded N1m in damages

Maje Ayida, a fitness entrepreneur, has won a defamation lawsuit he instituted against Toke Makinwa, his former wife.

Ayida had through his lawyers written a “letter of demand” to Makinwa in 2017 asking her to stop the promotion and sale of ‘On Becoming,’ a memoir by the media personality.

In the tell-all memoir, published on November 27, 2016 by Kachifo Limited, Makinwa had accused Ayida of being a serial cheat. She also claimed that he gave her sexually transmitted diseases.

But in the lawsuit, exclusively reported by TheCable Lifestyle in 2017, the fitness coach had alleged that Makinwa’s book not only contained defamatory words but was also misleading.

Ayide had also said that the book — which he described as nothing but “exaggerated fabrication” — caused him public ridicule.

He had consequently asked Makinwa, among other things, to withdraw the memoir from circulation, recall all copies distributed and hand them over to him for destruction.

Ayida had in the letter threatened legal action against the on-air personality (OAP) if she failed to withdraw the words used in the book and issue a full-page apology to be published in three national newspapers.

On Wednesday, a Lagos state high court sitting at Tafawa Balewa Square ruled in favour of the fitness trainer.

In its ruling presided over by Ogunjobi, the judge, the court held that after careful consideration of the evidence presented, it finds only the contents of page 54, line 11-16 and page 83, line 1 of the 1st defendants’ 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.

It also granted an injunction preventing the defendants from producing copies of the book with the defamatory words in the said pages.

Similarly, the court gave the defendant 30 days from its judgment to delete and remove the said defamatory words from the unsold copies of the book in the defendant’s custody.