A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, on Monday, received a suit filed by Adegboyega Lawal, the husband of famous Yoruba actress and filmmaker, Elizabeth Anjorin, popularly called Lizzy Anjorin.
The suit is against one of his estranged wives, Folashade Olalude, and the men of the Nigerian Police.
Lawal, according to Premium Times, dragged his estranged wife, Folashade, before the court in a fundamental rights enforcement suit marked FHC/L/CS/1488/22, alongside the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2, Onikan, Lagos, its Officer-in-Charge of the Monitoring Unit, and one Mr.s Tina, an Investigation Police with the Zone 2.
Lawal, in the suit filed by his lawyer, M. B. Bello, asked the court for “a declaration that the continuous harassment, humiliation, spreading of falsehood, and abuse on social media against him and his family by his estranged wife, is vindictive.
They also sought “An order of injunction restraining the second and third respondents, whether by themselves, their officers, agents, servants, privies or acting through any person or persons howsoever from further harassing, humiliating, embarrassing and threatening to detain the applicant based on the false and unfounded allegations from the first respondent”.
“A sum of N5 Million and N1 million against his ex-wife and the police, respectively, on the footing of aggravated and exemplary damages for continuous harassment, humiliation, spreading of falsehood, and abuse-on social media against him and his family. For the footing of aggravated and exemplary damages for his continuous invitation, harassment, intimidation and humiliation by the second to fourth respondents at the instance of the first respondent.”
But his estranged wife, Olalude, the first respondent in the suit, in her counter affidavit filed ,by her lawyer, Wahab Shittu, has asked the court to dismiss Lawal’s case because it seeks to truncate an ongoing police investigation against him.
She stated they were both living as husband and wife at No. 7 New Oko-Oba Road, Fagba, Lagos and that their second child was three to four months old when the applicant suddenly absconded from their marital home, abandoning her and the children without justifiable reasons in 2020.
She stated that she got to know subsequently that Lawal had started a relationship with Anjorin, and they both launched a vitriolic attack on her and her children on various social media platforms for the applicant to abandon his matrimonial responsibilities to her and the two children of their marriage.
She stated that the applicant, through his new wife, has issued several threats to her life on social media platforms to the extent that her life and that of her children remained threatened, and she no longer felt safe walking on the streets for fear of being attacked.
Olalude added that when the threats and attacks became unbearable, her plight got the attention of human rights activists and online social bloggers, who launched a public campaign for her protection against the unjustified attacks by the applicant and his actress wife, including their collaborators.
She also stated that she officially reported the applicant and his new wife, Anjorin, to the Police at Zone 2, Onikan, Lagos Island.
Following the official report made by her to the Police, the second, third and fourth respondents officially invited the applicant, who has repeatedly been shunning police invitations, stating his side of the story.
She stated that the suit instituted by the applicant was designed to prevent him from honoring the invitation extended to him by the other respondents, and that she never harassed, humiliated or spread any falsehood against the applicant or his new wife, Elizabeth Ibukunolu Anjorin, as alleged.
She averred that she never published or caused to be published any falsehood against Mr Lawal and his new wife on any social media platforms as alleged, other than the legal action she has taken concerning the harassment, abandonment, neglect and threats that she faced daily in the hands of the applicant, Elizabeth Ibukunolu Anjorin and their collaborators.
She also denied the applicant’s allegations of calling him a “Gigolo”, a gold digger, on Facebook and other social media platforms.
Still, she stated that she was the victim of the applicant’s neglect and abandonment, as the applicant abandoned her with two children, only to run to Elizabeth Ibukunolu Anjorin.
She stated that the invitation of the applicant by the fourth respondent to report to the Police in response to her petition is a normal Police statutory investigation process, adding that the fourth respondent merely invited the applicant to state his side of the story.
Olalude also said the applicant had been consistently interfering with her freedom by instigating the landlord of their former rented matrimonial premises at No. 7 New Oko-Oba Road, Fagba, Lagos, to prevent her from moving out her personal belongings from the said house to date.
She said that her previous attempts to move out her personal belongings from the said premises were resisted by the said landlord.
“He threatened to effect my arrest by acting on the applicant’s instructions. My personal belongings remain detained on the premises, working on the applicant’s orders. He has been using the children of his first marriage to persistently harass her on social media through all kinds of unprintable insults hauled at her person. The suit filed by Adegboyega aimed to truncate the police investigation of allegations against him.”
Olalude and Lawal had an elaborate Nikkai ceremony attended by some of her friends in the movie industry in July 2020. A few months after settling into married life, controversies arose.
His friend, Saheed Abogun, introduced him to his estranged wife in 2016. They married in 2017 after a formal customary introductory ceremony in her father’s house at lyana Iyesi, Ota, Ogun State.
They have two children, Lateefat Lawal, born in 2017 and Khadijat Lawal, born in 2020.
