The Senate is not about to let up the Akpabio-Natasha tangle soon, heightening the Kogi senator’s dysphoria. The risible standoff between Natasha Apoti-Uduanghan and Senate President Godswill Akpabio is, indeed, getting rather convoluted and highly dramatic every step of the way.
The six-month suspension slammed on her had lapsed on September 6, 2025, but the Senate leadership immediately rolled a big legal log in her way and nixed her move to resume her legislative duties.
That was the second time. She was earlier on Tuesday, July 22, 2025 physically blocked from entering the National Assembly complex when she moved to enforce a court ruling lifting her suspension. A Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Binta Nyako, had held days earlier that the legislative provisions on which her suspension was based were “excessive” and not in line with constitutional provisions.
The invasive mesh began on Tuesday February 25, 2025, on an innocuous note over seating arrangements during a Senate plenary. Tension had flared, leading to a heated exchange between Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan and the Senate leadership.
Senator Natasha’s seat was relocated upon resumption of the session, but she refused to comply with the change. However, what started as an internal wrangle soon grew wings and flew out of the hallowed sanctum of the upper legislative chamber and landed in the chatter of public court.
The outspoken Kogi Central senator externalised the whole thing when she consequently appeared on television, alleging that sexual harassment was behind her altercation with the Senate President Akpabio, an allegation the latter promptly denied.
The red chamber eventually suspended her on March 6, 2025 for six months following recommendations by its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions for failing repeatedly to honour the summons of the committee. That was about 24 hours after her petition formalising her sexual harassment allegations against the Senate president was rejected for allegedly violating Senate procedures.
Somehow, in a largely macho environment where women are still relatively subjugated, easily cowed and feminine assertiveness is a rarity, Senator Natasha Apoti-Uduaghan has simply become a symbol of defiance. She has, through sheer tenacity and grit, been able to rise above every contrivance to silence her, thus keeping the imbroglio sizzling in the cauldron of public opinion.
First, when her first petition was thrown out by the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions for violating Senate Standing rule 40, which forbids a member to personally sign a petition to the upper chamber, she brushed the disappointment aside and and promptly arranged for the resubmission of the petition, this time following due process.
The second petition, however, suffered a similar fate. The Senate, which had held contentious sittings over it, at a point stopped further consideration of the petition because it has become a subject of litigation.
Then, from the blues came orchestrated moves by Natasha’s Kogi Central constituents to recall her but the odious move soon fell through. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) explained that it cannot continue the petition seeking her recall because it failed to meet the constitutional requirement. The commission revealed that only 43.86 percent of the registered voters in the five local government areas signed the recall notice.
Again, at the approach of the last Eid-el-Ftri on April 1,2025, Natasha decided to fete her constituents as her wont, but the Kogi State government somehow got wind of her “homecoming,” as the programme was tagged, and resorted to ludicrous moves to scuttle it. It banned all forms of rallies and public gatherings to coincide with Natasha’s planned visit to her constituency.
Every road in the route to her constituency bristled with security operatives who mounted watertight barricades along the way just to stymie the programme. However, she outwitted the government and messed up its infantile manoeuvres by flying home in an helicopter! She successfully held the programme and a mammoth crowd graced it.
Meanwhile, the battle has since shifted to the legal turf. It has been legal fireworks all the way. Natasha had first filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, on March 3,2025 to halt an investigation by the Senate and its Committee on Ethics into the alleged misconduct preferred against her over the seat palaver.
Justice Obiora Egwuatu, who heard the case initially, had issued a restraining order, asking the Senate to stay action on its disciplinary proceedings. The upper chamber, however, demurred and proceeded to suspend her on March 6, for six months.
She then filed a contempt complaint against the Senate president and other relevant Senate officers for disobeying the order halting the disciplinary action against her.
As the case progressed, Akpabio himself approached the court to restrain parties to the suit from speaking to the press or sharing social media posts about the matter before the court, because the issue continued to elicit public commentaries in the media.
Natasha was to add a comical twist to the whole thing on April 27 when she posted a satirical apology on her Facebook page. The post dripped with scum, mocking Akpabio. The Senate President’s legal team responded swiftly to the satirical apology by filing an application in court, accusing the embattled senator of breaching the restraining order banning interviews and such a social media post while the case in court lasted. She too countered the application with the speed of lightning, urging the court to dismiss it.
Delivering judgment on her suit challenging the disciplinary action taken against her in March, Justice Binta Nyako, held that although the Senate had the powers to discipline erring members, the six-month suspension slammed on her was “excessive.”
She said suspending a senator for six months, which is equivalent to the 181 days the National Assembly is expected to sit in a legislative year, was unconstitutional, adding that the six-month suspension amounted to silencing the senator’s entire constituency for a whole legislative year.
But the judge awarded a fine of N5 million against Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan for her “satirical apology.”. She ruled that the social media post was made in disobedience of a valid court order prohibiting parties to the suit from making comments to the press or on social media regarding the subject matter of the pending suit.
She, therefore, ordered her to tender an unreserved apology in two national dailies and on her Facebook page within seven days of the judgment to “purge” herself of the contemptuous act against the court.
However, as the legal battle raged, her six-month suspension lapsed on September 6. She then informed the Senate leadership in writing of her intention to resume accordingly. But the red chamber quite surprisingly opposed the move.
In a letter, dated September 4, the Acting Clerk to the National Assembly, Dr Yahaya Danzaria, replied that her six-month suspension imposed on March 6 remains in force until the Court of Appeal delivers judgment in her suit against the Senate.
The letter stated: “The matter remains sub judice, and until the judicial process is concluded, no administrative action can be taken to facilitate your resumption. You will be duly notified of the Senate decision on the matter as soon as it is resolved”.
This is all bunkum! Opposing Natasha’s resumption by legislative fiat after she has served out her controversial six-month suspension is oddly and unfair. It is the height of vindictiveness. Hinging the decision on a subsisting suit in court over the suspension she has served out fully is sheer cockamamie. It is a specious argument that stands logic on its head.
It is clearly a continuation of the adversarial contrivance by the leadership of the red chamber to break the spirit of a strong-willed woman who dares to assert her rights.
Expectedly, the ludicrous decision has once again stirred another round of pervasive outrage online and offline. The Senate got the roasting of its life, thoroughly pilloried by angry Nigerians who saw the upper chamber’s action as a legislative overkill that has no footing in law.
Most of the respondents, including the central labour union, political parties, professional associations and the finest of legal minds, most of them Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), posit that the action of the red chamber is ultra vires, as it is unconstitutional.
They argue that the case in court is a secondary strand sprouting from the primary one, which is the propriety or otherwise of the suspension clamped on the embattled senator. Having served out the suspension at issue in full, there is no longer any legal hurdle against her resumption.
Going by the ruling of Justice Nyako, even the six months slammed on her should not have been, because, according to the ruling, it was “excessive.” It amounts to illegally and unfairly depriving her constituents 181 days of representation.
Further keeping her away from her legislative duties as long as the case in court lasts, which could be months or even years, will be an overreach that mocks legislative procedures.
This laughable legislative high-handedness that exposes us to international ridicule, apart from abridging Natasha’s rights and privileges as a senator of the federal republic, is denying her Kogi Central constituents their fundamental rights to representation the more she is kept away from the upper chamber.
The Senate leadership should stop exposing itself to public odium by calling off its absurd, circuitous game against a woman who dares to be different. She should be allowed to resume the legislative functions for which she was elected.
All her entitlements and appurtenances of office that were withdrawn from her at the wake of her unjustly long suspension should immediately be restored to her.