A Lagos High Court in Ikeja has thrown out a defamation lawsuit brought by prominent Nigerian lawyer Femi Falana and his son, music artiste Folarin Falana, popularly known as Falz, against controversial social media personality Martins Otse, widely known as Verydarkman (VDM).
The legal action stemmed from a video posted by VDM on September 24, 2024, in which he accused the Falanas of receiving N10 million from popular internet personality Idris Okuneye, a.k.a. Bobrisky, to manipulate a legal matter. In response, both father and son demanded N500 million each as compensation for what they described as baseless and damaging allegations.
According to the plaintiffs, the claims made by the blogger were completely false and intended to harm their public image. They also noted that the content remains available on VDM’s social media pages, thereby continuing the alleged reputational damage.
During Tuesday’s proceedings, none of the parties were present in court. However, a lawyer representing VDM informed the court of a pending application to halt proceedings, filed earlier before a different judge, Justice Fimisola Azeez. The Falanas’ lawyer, who had only received the application a day before, argued that it was a delay tactic and pushed for the case to continue.
Justice Matthias Dawodu, after reviewing the situation, criticized the overlap in court proceedings and declared that pursuing the case further would be merely academic since the main lawsuit was already assigned to another judge. He consequently dismissed the case.
