Omoni Oboli announces victory in the legal battle over ‘Okafor’s Law’
Omoni Oboli couldn’t contain her joy as she announced her victory at the court over the ownership of the script for ‘Okafor’s Law’ challenged by Jude Idada and Rancouteour Productions.
In her victory speech, she said judgment was given on May 2, 2019, after two years. In an Instagram post, Oboli narrated the experience in the last two years but happy to have been vindicated.
On Thursday, March 30, 2017, a Federal High Court granted Omoni Oboli the go ahead to release “Okafor’s Law” on Friday March 31, 2017.
Though the Court lifted the injunction, the case remained in court, with hearing of the substantive matter commencing on Monday, April 3, 2017.
Earlier Justice N. Buba had ruled in favour of an interlocutory injunction which was served to Omoni Oboli, Filmone and Dioni Visions to halt the release of the movie in Nigeria.
It all started online in September 2016, when a Canada based writer, Jude Idada, accused Omoni Oboli of stealing his idea for her movie, “Okafor’s Law.”
Jude Idada, a Canadian based screenwriter had publicly accused Omoni Oboli of stealing his idea for the ‘Okafor’s Law’ script’ on September 7, 2017. Few days after the name calling, Oboli’s ‘Okafor’s Law,’ premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Monday, September 12, 2016.
Idada assigned rights of his script to Chioma Onyenwe of Raconteur Productions. Following this move, Oboli was prevented from premiering her film in Nigeria on March 24, 2017, after being served a court injunction filed by Raconteur Productions. Following the injunction, the previously scheduled premiere of “Okafor’s Law” didn’t hold.
The Past between Idada and Oboli
In 2013, Jude Idada claimed to have written a treatment for the movie “Being Mrs Elliott,” which he forwarded to the actress. However, Oboli produced the movie off the treatment without contacting or paying Idada for his work.
According to our source, the actress defended her act, claiming to have forgotten that a treatment was sent to her by Idada.
Jude Idada, who had no idea that a movie was made off his treatment, got to find out at the 2014 Nollywood Film Festival in Paris, when the movie was screened to the audience.
Hence, Idada was reportedly hesitant to write the script because he once had a bad experience with the Obolis in the past.
The alleged negotiation between Oboli and Idada
On March 30, 2017, Pulse spoke with an undisclosed source who said that Oboli had contacted Jude Idada to write the script and that they had shared ideas during their several meetings.
According to her, Oboli decided to write her own script after several attempts to reach Jude was unsuccessful.
However, another inside contradicted the above source, stating that after Oboli had contacted Jude Idada in late 2014 to write her script, the latter tried severally to reach her, but wasn’t successful.
Source – pulse.ng
