Remember last year (February, 2022) when a popular and talented Nigerian music artiste by the name of Ikuforijimi Abdulrahman, popularly known by the stage name, “Oxlade” took over the internet trend table over his leaked sex tape, which he by himself leaked through his Snapchat account?
Well, the lady in question with whom he engaged in the sex with sued Oxlade praying the court to mandate Oxlade to compensate her for the emotional damage and damage to her reputation she had suffered because of the action of the entertainer and she reiterated before the court through her attorneys that the act of the artiste recording their sexual act without her knowledge and consent amounted to “gross violation of her fundamental rights to dignity, privacy and freedom from discrimination guaranteed under sections 34 and 37 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and Articles 5 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Ratification and Enforcement), Act, Cap. A9, LFN, 2004”.
The court granted her prayers and awarded her the sum of Five Million Naira (N5,000,000) in damages against the accused, Oxlade.
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His Lordship, Justice O.A. Oresanya of the Lagos state High court while delivering the judgement on January 24th, 2023 unequivocally stated in his obiter dictum that “the action and attitude of the respondent (Oxlade), who is said to be a celebrity, is despicable, horrendous, distasteful and classless. The respondent is admonished strongly to act with utmost circumspection in his relationship with fellow humans, especially the opposite sex (because) what goes around comes around.”
It should be put out there that leaking someone’s sex tape, recording someone during sexual intercourse without their consent or using someone’s nudes to blackmail the person and extort that person are all crimes in Nigeria. If you record your partner during sexual intercourse without the person’s consent even if the person consented to the sex, for as much as the partner never consented to you recording the act, it is a crime and a breach of fundamental human right to privacy of the partner. Also, even if the partner consented to you recording the sexual act, if you go ahead and release the obscene files to the general public you have violated the person’s right to privacy as well.
Act of this nature is not just criminal, they are immoral and they corrupt the public morals and it is; in the words of my Lord justice, Justice O.A. Oresanya of the Lagos state High court “despicable, horrendous, distasteful and classless”.
