Nollywood actress Adunni Ade has won a N20 million judgment in her favour after a Lagos High Court ruled that an online news outlet violated her privacy by falsely linking her to Senator Dino Melaye.

The lawsuit, filed under case number LD/17781MFHR/2024, was brought against the platform and its reporter over a January 18, 2023 article titled “Six Popular Nigerian Actresses Who Have Been Accused of Dating Dino Melaye.” Adunni claimed the story portrayed her in a misleading and offensive manner, causing emotional distress and infringing on her constitutional right to privacy under Section 37 of the Nigerian Constitution. She also cited breaches of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023, for using her name and photo without consent.

The defendants argued that Adunni’s images were publicly available on her Instagram and that the lawsuit came a year after the article’s publication. However, presiding judge Ibironke Harrison ruled in the actress’s favour, stating she did not need to have directly submitted her data for a valid privacy claim.

In her June 24 judgment, the court awarded N20 million in general damages and ordered the publication to remove all references to her name and images. The ruling also formally recognised “false light” as a distinct form of privacy violation in Nigerian law, marking a significant precedent.

Adunni Ade, a single mother of two sons, Ayden Young and D’marion Young, is of German-American and Nigerian heritage. This case adds to her ongoing efforts to protect her personal life from false online reports, having threatened legal action earlier this year against another blog over inaccurate claims about her marital status.