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Grace Oladejo, a registered nurse in her mid-40s from Point Cook, was worried about voodoo.
It was commonplace in her birth country of Nigeria but not something she expected to encounter in Melbourne. The Pentecostal Christian felt compelled to warn others about what she knew.
After introducing herself to elders of the Victorian Nigerian community on Whatsapp, Oladejo launched into the crucial part of her voice memo with a plea for help.
“What I’m about to say is very important,” she said, according to an English translation included in court documents.
“But it’s been happening for a while, and I believe it’s time for me to speak out.”
Credit: Wayne Taylor
Oladejo made a serious accusation: a man they knew had allegedly performed voodoo on a friend of hers so the friend would leave her husband for him.
Little did she know that years later she would end up in a Victorian court, where she would be forced to defend her comments under defamation law.
“I can’t believe in Australia he used voodoo,” Oladejo was recorded saying in 2018 in the Yoruba language of west Africa. “Please I’m begging all the people I’ve mentioned and every Yoruba people listening to this, please help.”
Oladejo was making the comments about Adeniyi Ekine, a fellow Nigerian living in Melbourne she had known for several years who describes himself as an ambassador for peace, journalist and evangelist.
Voodoo is a traditional religion practised by people in west African countries including Ghana, Benin and Nigeria, with some of the beliefs infusing the region’s version of Christianity. In popular culture it is best known for the conjuring of evil spirits to harm people.
“Can you please ask Ekine what [the woman] has done to him to make him go to the extent of using voodoo on her to make her abruptly pack her things and leave her husband?,” Oladejo said.
“She is no longer in her right mind and to an extent where she is exhibiting psychotic symptoms.”
Ekine, a 48-year-old from Werribee, denies that he ever used voodoo.
He sued Oladejo in the Victorian County Court for defamation, saying he was portrayed as an “African black magician that uses supernatural powers for evil and selfish purposes”.
Oladejo said she sent the message to only 10 people, but Ekine believed the voodoo accusations spread much further into the community and had “gone viral”.
In court documents, he said people “from different walks of life” had called him and wanted to know “seriously and sarcastically” if he could do magical spells for them to make someone “go insane, mad or to attract them”.
He said the comments had led to a viewership drop on his Channel 31 TV show, impacted his role as a community leader and reduced attendance at the church he founded, known as King of Glory.
“The imputations carried by the publication are deeply malicious and offensive to the plaintiff and have caused significant ongoing reputational damage and distress to him,” his writ said.
In response to Ekine’s legal action, Oladejo relied on defences of truth and qualified privilege, which allows defamatory statements if they are in the public interest and made without malice.
According to evidence given by Oladejo in court, she said that her friend told her that Ekine used “ado” (another word for voodoo) to rub from her “belly button down to her private parts” when she was naked.
Oladejo told the court that her friend asked her not to go to the police because they would not understand voodoo.
Several people who knew the woman said she subsequently became mentally unwell after the alleged voodoo and was hospitalised. One said it was like she was under “spiritual attack”.
Oladejo told the court she believed the woman was under spiritual possession and that Ekine had caused it.
Her husband Adewale Oladejo, a migration lawyer and minister at the City of Refuge church, gave evidence in court that the use of dark magic confers power but that power comes at a cost.
Rather than engage lawyers, both parties represented themselves in court and the woman at the centre of the allegations did not give evidence in court. Ekine sought legal costs of $100,000 plus further damages and an apology from Oladego.
Because she did not give evidence, Judge Julie Clayton was not satisfied that the cause of the woman’s psychological distress was a result of the conduct of Ekine or any potential use of voodoo.
She rejected Oladejo’s truth defence.
“I do not find that Mr Ekine used voodoo on [the woman], or otherwise used or uses voodoo, African black magic or any variation of demonic, evil diabolical power,” Judge Clayton said in a judgment last month.
But Judge Clayton dismissed Ekine’s claim and upheld Oladejo’s defence of qualified privilege, accepting that she was acting out of a genuine desire to protect her friend.
“Mrs Oladejo is an evangelical Christian and believed a close friend was at risk from a spiritual possession caused by another member of the community,” Clayton said in her judgment.
“I accept that, in that context, she had a moral obligation to inform those people in her community who had an interest or duty to receive that information.”
Judge Clayton said that Oladejo had not shown malice in making the voodoo allegations. She said she was only motivated by sincere concerns for her friend.
“After sending the audio file she was advised by her pastor that voodoo can be undone by prayer. She felt that (was) the best way forward,” she said.
“Had Mrs Oladejo been motivated by malice and a desire to damage Mr Ekine’s reputation, I would expect her to have further broadcast her allegations about him.”
Oladejo was contacted for comment but declined an interview. Ekine did not respond to approaches by The Sunday Age.
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