WESTERN PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED & ANOR V. DR. KAYODE FAYEMI

BOLOUKUROMO M. UGO, JCA (DELIVERING THE LEADING JUDGMENT): This appeal raises some interesting issues of the practice and procedure of, and the assessment/award of damages in, libel actions.

The appeal itself stems from, and is against, the judgment of the High Court of Ekiti State, presided over by C.I. Akintayo J., wherein in Suit No HAD/84/2012 it adjudged the appellants (the defendants in the lower court) liable for Libel and consequently awarded aggravated damages of Two Billion Naira (₦2,000,000,000), among other orders, against them and in favour of the respondent (claimant at the lower court) who was at the material time the Governor of Ekiti State.

The subject matter of the said libel is contained in four editions of the appellants' Nigerian Compass newspaper which, it is common ground, is widely circulated and read all over Nigeria, especially Ekiti State, and also has a website in the internet that makes it accessible to the whole world.

In their said publications, of which…