Stanley, a blogger, is going to be prosecuted for allegedly defaming Mr. Emeka Okonkwo, a rich businessman, in an internet video. At a press conference on Monday at the command’s Ikeja headquarters, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, a spokesman for the Lagos State Police, made this statement. He said that a crack team of the command had arrested the suspect after looking into a petition that E-Money had filed. The police spokeswoman stressed that the blogger’s acts were criminal and that E-Money was allegedly defamed, not the case’s personalities. This was the reason for the blogger’s prosecution.
He urged social media users to refrain from spreading harmful content and to report cases of defamation directly to the police for proper investigation and prosecution.
He said:
“He is going to be prosecuted because the things he engaged in were criminal in nature. He has allegedly defamed E-Money and he is going to be prosecuted.
“We are not prosecuting the suspect because of the personality involved, but because he has allegedly committed crime, the personality goes through the normal channel by reporting the case to the police and we investigated and arrested the suspect.
“If one is defamed and you only talk about it on social media, you have not reported the case yet to the Police, it doesn’t work that way. The best thing to do is report at any police division, area command or police headquarters, we will take it up”.
The suspect acknowledged that the claims made regarding E-Money were completely untrue and that he had fabricated the aforementioned video purely to drive more visitors to his page during the parade. He apologized for the fallout from his conduct and stated that his goal was to draw more attention to his web platform rather than damage E-Money’s brand.
He said:
“I did a video about E-Money. I said a lot of things that are not true in that video, that is why the police arrested me.
“I said something regarding a video I saw online about a woman – saying that Sir E-Money is responsible for the things that happened to Nollywood actor John Odonwodo, aka Junior Pope’s case.
“I said something like that, I also said that Sir E-Money was also having an affairs with Junior Pope’s wife. I have never in my life met E-Money. Everything I made in that video was not true.
“I made the video out of trying to boost my page traffic level, I never knew it will go viral the way it went. I don’t have bad intention to tarnish Sir E-Money’s name. I was just making the video, I didn’t know it will go such wide.
“I know the contents of the video were wrong of me to have made. I don’t know the video will escalate to that extent,” he said.
It serves as a reminder that sharing false information online can have serious consequences and that individuals should be mindful of the content they post on social media to avoid causing harm to others.
