A Federal high Court in Lagos has adjourned till after vacation a suit instituted by a Lagos businesswoman, Amuda Adeleke, against the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the last general election Alhaji Atiku Abubakar over unauthorised use of her picture for campaign purposes.
Joined as co-respondents in the legal battle are Atiku’s running mate, Peter Obi, Director General, Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, Bukola Saraki and PDP.
The Applicant, in the papers filed by her lawyer, Adeleke Adepoju, contends that during the random campaign outreach of the party towards the last general elections led by the officers of the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, AACCO, under the leadership of Saraki led campaign to the crowd at Oyin Jolayemi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos to draw support for the candidacy of Atiku and Obi in the 2019 general elections for the offices of the president and vice president respectively, they informed the crowd including herself that they were agents of the two candidates and they were leading the campaign on their behalf.
Thereafter, her picture was used without her consent on electronic billboards across the country for the campaign of the two candidates which portrayed her as a poverty stricken woman who had lost all hope and was prepared to commit suicide which has exposed her private life and affairs to the public.
Consequently, Mrs Adeleke is demanding for the sum of N45 million payable by the respondents jointly and severally as compensation to her for the unlawful, unauthorised and unconstitutional use of her image by the respondents.
The Applicant is also urging the court to declare that the unauthorised use, publication and display of her image by Saraki as part of the Atiku and Obi presidential campaign advert constitutes a breach and an infringement of her fundamental rights to privacy as enshrined, guaranteed and provided for in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
However, in a counter affidavit sworn to by a litigation secretary, Olufemi Akinjo, on behalf of Atiku and Obi and filed before the court by Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, the Deponent averred that Atiku and Obi did not meet the applicant physically or in any manner in the course of their campaign in Lagos State and neither took snapshots or photographs of the Applicant.
Atiku and his running mate also stated that they did not erect any billboard containing the Applicant’s picture anywhere, therefore did not invade the Applicant’s right to privacy of publishing her picture without her consent or authority. Therefore, there was no way they could have portrayed her as a poverty stricken woman “who has lost all hope and prepared to commit suicide.” The two respondents are urging the court to dismiss the claim of the applicants against the two of them.
Saraki and PDP in a counter affidavit sworn to by a legal practitioner in the legal department of the party, Ademola Fanokun, and filed before the court by Emmanuel Enoidem, averred that the two respondents have not met the applicant before and so do not know her at all, but that matters of electronic/ billboards campaigns were contracted out to AHC Productions Ltd which contacted and interviewed her.
Fanokun averred further that he was informed by Tokunbo Omulekulo of AHC Production as follows:
The Applicant’s name is not Amuda Adeleke but Tope Olukolu with GSM number 08035059775 which is the name she gave during the interview as contained in the consent agreement she signed with AHC Productions.
The applicant, her friends and neighbours, waited willingly for more than a week to get her pictures taken and interviewed for the purpose of the campaign advertisement.
Each of the persons used for the electronic campaign advertisement were duly paid and made to sign an agreement before their photographs/images and names were used, therefore the action of the applicant is a clear case of goal digging because after the electronic /billboards campaign advertisements were on, the applicant called Tokunbo Omulekulo and asked for more money to be given to her because the advertisement was more than she expected. When that was not forthcoming she decided to bring the present suit using a different name from the one she used in the agreement she signed. So there was no infringement of her right in any way whatsoever.
However, in a further affidavit, Mrs Adeleke averred that the totalities of the facts contained in the respondents’ respective counter affidavit are completely distorted, false and inaccurate. She stated that, contrary to the affidavit of the respondents, her name is not Tope Olukolu and have never been called, known or associated with such name. She annexed her International passport to the affidavit to show she bears Amuda Adeleke.
She stated that she had never met any Tokunbo Omulekulo; neither was she informed of the fact that her picture would be used for the electronic campaign of the PDP candidates or any other person.
Consequently, she denied receiving any payment or signing any such agreement or at all with the respondents or the said Tokunbo Omulekulo or any person whatsoever.
The court has adjourned till September 17, 2019 when the case will go into trial.