Defamation against Falanas: VeryDarkMan appears in court

Popular activist, Vincent Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan, has appeared in the Lagos High Court for the hearing of the defamation suit brought against him by Senior Advocate of Nigeria Femi Falana and his son, Folarin, popularly known as Falz.

Recall that VeryDarkMan had in a leaked video purportedly made by Idris Okuneye popularly known as Bobrisky, had made some remarks about the role allegedly played by Falana in Bobrisky’s attempt to secure amnesty while in prison custody.

The Falanas had following this, dragged the defendant before the court in separate suits, claiming N500 million each as damages over a video he posted on his social media platforms alleging that they collected N10 million from Bobrisky, to prevent justice.

In their suits, the father and son submitted that the defendant knew all his comments were unverified and not true, yet he proceeded to publish the same to injure their reputation recklessly.

They also stated that the alleged defamatory publication is still trending on the defendant’s online handles and pages and as such, the injury to their reputation continues as long as the publication remains online.

In his ruling on the exparte application filed along with the substantive suit, Justice Dawodu ordered VeryDarkMan, his agents, and any associates to remove the defamatory videos and comments posted on September 24, 2024, across all his social media platforms.

The judge also restrained VeryDarkMan from further publishing any defamatory content against Falana.

“The defendant, his agents, and privies are hereby restrained from further releasing, publishing, or circulating any defamatory videos/comments about the applicant and to bring down the defamatory video/comments about the Applicant published on September 24, 2024, on all his online social media handles/pages pending compliance with the pre-action protocol of this court,” the judge ruled.