John Abayomi was all over social media yesterday as Linda Ikeji’s blog broke the news that he was the man in charge of affairs of the popular instagram page, Instablog9ja.
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The Young man who is the current online editor of Punch Newspaper has however denied the claims of ownership of instablog even as the management of Punch newspaper threatened to fire him for moonlighting.
Mr. Abayomi also vowed to sue Linda Ikeji for accusing him falsely, libel and defamation of character in order to clear his name.
It was gathered that Mr. Abayomi was summoned before the management board of Punch newspapers as the story broke on social media to explain if he was really the owner of Instablog.
Linda Ikeji in her blog alleged that Abayomi had been running the platform since 2015, combining it with his daily duty at the 42-year-old media house.
Instablog9ja has grown to be one of the most followed handles in the Nigerian media space with 1.7 million followers and usurped other gossip sites by utilizing Linda Ikeji’s method of publishing gossip and bizarre news most often not backed up by facts.
According to an inside source within the Punch Newspaper;
“Abayomi was summoned into a high-level editorial meeting, along with his bosses and the management and everyone is confused about the whole situation.”
The infringement in this case is regarding as ‘moonlighting’; a case where someone has a second job despite being in full employment with another employer which the management of Punch newspaper do not condone.
Abayomi’s case is of extreme importance because while the newspaper has just 225,000 followers on Instagram, Instablog has nearly eight times as much- while incurring no overhead costs and on company time.
According to the source;
“Everyone is confused and asking questions. Mr Abayomi is a dedicated man who is always in the office. I wonder where he would get the spare time to handle a blog like Instablog9ja, so I think it is untrue until investigations are complete.”
During the emergency meeting with his current employers, Abayomi denied the reports, insisting that it was a false fabrication and vowed to sue Linda Ikeji in the coming days for libel, false accusation and defamation of character.