Defamation: Court orders social media critic to pay legal practitioner N5m damages
High Court Orders Social Media Critic to Pay Damages for Defamation
A High Court in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, has ordered Chika Nwoba, a social media critic, to pay five million naira in damages to Ugadu Chinedu, a legal practitioner, for defamation.
The ruling came in a case marked HAB/75/2024, where Nwoba was accused of posting defamatory content about Chinedu on his Facebook page during 2024 and 2025.
Justice Franklin Edem, after reviewing the submitted evidence, determined that several publications made by Nwoba on June 15, September 18, 2024, February 18, and July 17, 2025, were indeed defamatory.
In addition to the damages, the court issued a perpetual injunction prohibiting Nwoba and his affiliates from further defamatory acts against Chinedu.
Furthermore, Nwoba is required to retract the defamatory statements by publishing a retraction on his Facebook page for a continuous period of seven days, accompanied by an apology to Chinedu, within 30 days of the ruling.
