UK court orders woman who defamed Dr. Olukoya to publish decision on social media accounts 

A high Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench, United Kingdom, has ordered Ms. Maureen Badejo to publish a summary of the court’s judgment delivered in favour of the General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries International, Dr. Daniel Olukoya and the church, in all the social media platforms under her control or be in contempt of court.

The order followed an application made to that effect by the church and Dr. Olukoya (first and second claimants) before the court in the suit marked QB-2020-003625 against the defendant.

The trial judge, Mrs. Justice Tipples, in her order, warned the defendant to do the publications on Thursday November 4, 2021 by 10:00am or risk being “found guilty of contempt of court and you may be sent to prison or fined or your assets may be seized”.

“The wording of the summary of the judgment is settled by the court under section 12(3) of 2013 Act in the form annexed to this order marked annex1 by (a) posting it to each of the social media accounts identified in sub-paragraphs 3(a) to (e) below and shall ensure that such summary be accessible to the followers of those accounts for a period of 10 days;

“And by posting on the social media account identified in sub-paragraph 3(f) below a link to each of her Facebook accounts identified at paragraphs 3(d) and (e), and shall ensure that those links are accessible to the followers of the social media account identified at paragraphs 3(f) for a period of 10 days,” the judge ordered.

The court went further to list the social media accounts as, Facebook account in the name of Gio TV; Facebook account in the name of Gio TV Foundation; a website in the name of Gio TV (gio-tv.com); Facebook account named Maureen Badejo @maureenbadejosblog; another one named Maureen.badejo.587 and a YouTube channel entitled “MaureenBadejosblogTV.”

The court also stated the summary of the judgment to be published by the defendant in accordance with paragraph one of the order.

“In October 2020, Dr. Olukoya and Mrs. Folashade Olukoya brought proceedings against Ms. Maureen Badejo in defamation in relation to allegations of, amongst other things, dishonesty and sexual misconduct. Ms Badejo filed a defence alleging the allegations she had published were true.

“In April 2021 that defence was struck out as disclosing no reasonable grounds for defending the claim and as an abuse of the court’s process. In April 2021 Dr. and Mrs. Olukoya obtained summary judgment against Ms. Badejo; an injunction was granted preventing Ms. Badejo from publishing any of the allegations she had made against Dr. Olukoya and Mrs. Olukoya; and damages were ordered to be determined at a later date.

“On October 22, 2021, the court determined the damages payable by Ms. Badejo, and she was ordered to pay damages of £65,000 to Dr. Olukoya and £35,000 to Mrs. Olukoya as compensation for the wrong they have suffered,” the held and insisted that the defendant must publish the decision on the selected channels on the stipulated date and time.