Nollywood actress Tonto Dikeh has been taken to court over an alleged religious deliverance performed on a schoolgirl, with human rights lawyer Ikechukwu Obasi seeking N200 million in damages for violations of the child’s fundamental rights.
The lawsuit, filed at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja, concerns an incident that reportedly occurred on March 6, 2026, involving a Junior Secondary School 1 student of JSS Durumi II, Abuja, who hails from Rivers State.
The case was brought under the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009.
Court filings alleged that Dikeh subjected the minor to a harmful religious ritual and later shared footage of the act on her official social media platforms.
According to the filing, “the Respondent carried out a vicious religious exorcism on a female school child, wherein the child was laid on bare ground while being pressed against the stony surface despite the Respondent wearing artificial fingernails; harassing and publicly shaming the child.”
Obasi contended that the incident amounted to degrading treatment and could cause long-term psychological harm.
“The actions of the Respondent did not just constitute degrading treatment of the school child but exposed her to contempt, public shame, and likely unspoken child trauma,” the filing stated.
The lawsuit also alleged that circulating the footage without consent violated the girl’s privacy rights under Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution and the Child Rights Act 2003. Presenting the student as demonically possessed, the lawyer argued, could expose her to stigma, ridicule, and discrimination among peers.
In addition to seeking N200 million in damages, the suit requests that the court declare the act a violation of the child’s constitutional right to dignity and privacy, order the removal of the video and images from all social media platforms, mandate publication of an unreserved apology in three national newspapers, and bar Dikeh from performing similar rituals on any Nigerian child.
The application further seeks a judicial determination that any form of child exorcism or harmful religious ritual carried out under the guise of spiritual deliverance constitutes a violation of children’s fundamental rights in Nigeria.
