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Court stops ESABOD from further attacks on Ooni of Ife
By Adekunle Badmus
An Irish high court has restrained Ireland based blogger, Esther Aboderin popularly known as ESABOD from further featuring or mentioning the name of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan on her online blogging till the final determination of the suit brought before the court against the blogger by the monarch.
The Nigerian traditional monarch claims he has been defamed in a series of social media posts by an Irish-based blogger, the High Court has heard.
Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, known as Ojaja II, who is the traditional ruler and spiritual leader of the Yoruba people, claims he has been defamed by Esther Esabod Aboderin in video clips and other posts that have appeared on Facebook and YouTube.
He claims he has been wrongly and maliciously accused in the posts of committing serious criminal offences by the defendant, including being involved in land grabs, silencing journalists critical of him, human trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, and having people killed.
None of the accusations are true, he states.
The defendant, Ms Esabod Aboderin with an address in Leixlip, Co Kildare and originally from Nigeria, told the court her blog has thirty million followers. She denied the comments are defamatory.
As a result of the posts, Mr Ogunwusi (45), represented by Thomas Hogan SC, sought various orders against Ms Aboderin under the 2009 Defamation Act.
The orders include injunctions requiring her to take down the allegedly defamatory posts and that she, or anyone else with knowledge of the order, cease posting any more defamatory material about him.
When the matter came before Mr Justice Anthony Barr the defendant, who represented herself consented to injunctions which will remain in place pending the full hearing of the action being made against her.
She also agreed to remove the allegedly defamatory material from her Facebook account.
The material placed on YouTube had been posted by others, she said. She told the judge she would take steps, including asking her followers, to take down the posts at issue.
Mr Hogan said his client, who is a trained chartered accountant who has worked in real estate was selected in 2015 to be the traditional monarch and spiritual leader of the Yoruba, an ethnic group of forty-four million people who mainly live in Nigeria and Benin.
