By Dauda Musbau
Claim:
Court fines activist, VeryDarkMan 500 million naira for defaming Falz and Falana.
Verdict
The claim that VeryDarkMan was fined N500 million is False!
Full Text
An X user, @woye1 claimed that Otse Martins popularly known and called VeryDarkMan is going to pay Folarin Falana a.k.a Falz and his father, Femi Falana Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) a sum of 500 million naira.
Screenshot of the claim
This is coming after the Lagos High Court ordered VeryDarkMan to bring down the defamatory video he made against Falana and his son.
Recall that VeryDarkMan posted a ‘leaked’ recording, alleging Bobrisky saying he made the payment of N15 million bribe to Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).
In the viral call recording, Bobrisky was purportedly heard to have claimed that he spoke to the Nigerian rapper, Falz and Femi Falana (SAN) to secure him a state pardon.
The claim has garnered over 180,000 views, 771 likes, 126 reposts, 46 quotes and 38 bookmarks as at the time of filing this check.
In a now deleted publication, the claim was also published by reputable media outlets like The Guardian, Vanguard, and a blog, Instablog.
The screenshot of the now deleted claim on the Instablog9ja
Verification
To verify this claim, FactCheckAfrica checked through the websites of the reputable media outlets that published this claim and discovered that each of them had deleted it. This firstly raised our concern.
We further examined the document of the court order issued at the Lagos High Court, Ikeja and signed by Hon. Justice. M.O Dawodu, the judge of the case, discovered that there is nowhere in the ‘ruling’ of the court that stated that the Defendant, VeryDarkMan should pay a sum of 500 million naira as fines.
Evidence of the court ruling
We discovered that a report by THE PUNCH also did not mention that VeryDarkMan was ordered to pay any fine, but was only asked to remove the defamatory post.
Conclusion
Based on the document of the court ruling that was shared, FactCheckAfrica can confirm that VeryDarkMan was not fined N500 million as claimed.
