A Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja has fined singer Ikuforijimi Olaitan Abdulrahman, professionally know as Oxlade, the sum of five million naira over a leaked sex tape with a woman on social media app, Snapchat.
In a judgement dated 24th January 2023, and trending online, Justice Oresanya described the action of the singer, in secretly recording an explicit s3x with a woman and thereafter leaking it online as “despicable, horrendous, distasteful and classless.”
The sex tape of the singer had surfaced online in February 2022, without the knowledge and consent of the woman involved in the video.
The leaked video, which was met with public outrage, forced Oxlade to tender an apology to his fans and to the woman in the video.
The woman, John Blessing, had filed a suit before the court on March 15, 2022 seeking ₦20million damages and a declaration that the respondent (Oxlade’s) act of recording his explicit sexual acts without her knowledge and consent amounted to flagrant contravention of enabling laws and a gross violation of her fundamental rights to dignity, privacy and freedom from discrimination guaranteed under Sections 34 and 37 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended); and Articles 5 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Ratification and Enforcement), Act, CAP A9, LFN, 2004.
Delivering judgment in the matter, Justice Oresanya chastised the singer and cautioned him against such act in his relationship with the opposite sex in the future.
“The action and attitude of the Respondent (Oxlade), who is said to be a celebrity, is despicable, horrendous, distasteful and classless. The Respondent is admonished strongly to act with utmost circumspection in his relationship with fellow humans, especially the opposite sex. “what goes around comes around”. I need not say more,” the judge said.
The judge also berated Oxlade for treating the judicial process with disrespect and accused his lawyer of aiding him to desecrate the temple of justice.
Justice Oresanya said the court would have awarded exemplary and aggravated damages far greater than the agreed settlement sum of ₦5 million against the respondent for the alleged “cruel violation of the privacy of the claimant via the online/internet publication of an explicit sex tape involving the claimant and the respondent on 9th February, 2022.”
The judge thereafter entered the Terms of Settlement dated January 11, 2023 as the judgment of the court.
By the consent judgement, Oxlade is to pay the ₦5million damages awarded against him to the claimant in two instalments of ₦2million and ₦3million respectively.
The court judge gave an order of perpetual injunction against the claimant from initiating any further legal process or any process in respect of the facts and matters giving rise to the suit, and from instituting or discussing the issues constituted in the claim on any platform, and before any third party.