Akpabio, Natasha and the ideas of March

BY the time you are reading this, we would have put the ideas of March behind us, but for the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio and the Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the seeds of discord that sprouted in March are bound to showcase consequences far beyond that month.  And we are already seeing the implications.

Senator Natasha’s problems, as far as we know, erupted the day she engaged the chair of the Senate, Akpabio, in a shouting match over the relocation of her seat. But aside from that, the Senator had perhaps unknowingly committed another offence, this time on national television. Senator Natasha had appeared on Arise television and inadvertently indicted her colleagues when she told her interviewer about the management of Senate Committee imprest. In that television interview, Senator Natasha was trying to ascertain her integrity when she said that she refused to approve the sharing of her committee’s imprest even when the clerk told her to do so. Her claims ended up brushing many committee chairmen with a dark tar. Whereas senators would tell you that the situation of committees is not the same. I also know of committees with huge traffic of parastatals who can exhaust their imprest in a week. What the interview did for her was to create a bank of unwilling supporters, even when she raised issues on the floor of the Senate.

Having got the hard hit of the gavel, however, Senator Natasha used the microphone from the same seat she was protesting to declare that “this injustice would not stand,” as she made her way outside the chamber on March 6.

Questions have been asked whether the Senate should be engaging in a tango over an issue as flimsy as the change of seats. But, as they say, it is what it is. The peace of the chamber is the utmost responsibility of the presiding officer. Every chamber has the propensity to trend towards an “axis of evil.” But it is the duty of the presiding officer to make that dangerous axis inoperable.  Now that reason did not prevail as quickly as possible, the nation is left to grapple with growing seeds of the ides of March.

Perhaps Senator Akpabio should have sensed danger on the day Senator Natasha flared up and like a man on white apparel, make way for anyone bearing a keg of palm oil. Rather than seek to apply the rules in their strict sense, the Senate President could have shut down the chamber and dissolved the senate into a closed session to enable the lawmakers to trash their dirty line within the room.  By allowing everything in the full glare of television, the senate and the nation are now being paraded in the open like the eight-day child whose naming ceremony is being celebrated. 

On March 11, Senator Natasha decided to internationalise the matter by reporting Akpabio’s senate to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the global body of parliaments that was founded in Paris in 1889 with the aim of promoting global peace and development of parliaments through dialogue and diplomacy. Though the President of the Senate and the Nigerian parliament had responded to that decision, the development does not leave Nigeria smelling like roses. This is a body the country had only returned to in 1999, having been suspended all through the military years. It is also a body the country has been performing badly in its committees because of the high turnover of our lawmakers which does not guarantee them to gather experience on the platform and grow in the ranks. So, while the name of the country is hardly on the lips for good measure in that global meet, it is sad that only a report of alleged sexual harassment by a female senator would take this country to the centre of discussion at the IPU. But then the decision to report the senate to the global legislative chamber of the Women Parliamentarians in New York, United States of America, was a misnomer in strict sense. The IPU deals with international diplomacy. They are concerned about the status of countries and global peace, not internal affairs of lawmakers in the chambers of their countries.

However, in externalizing the challenge she had with the Nigerian Senate, Senator Natasha had to her colleagues at the New York meeting that calling for justice and intervention from global democratic institutions over allegations of sexual harassment against the President of the Nigerian Senate, which she said earned her suspension.

She had told the parliamentarians: “I come with a heavy heart from Nigeria. But first, I’d like to apologise too honourable… I’m not here to bring shame to our country. I’m here to seek help for the women of Nigeria.

“Five days ago, on the 6th of March 2025, I was suspended as a senator illegally because I submitted a petition of sexual harassment against the President of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio. I thought that by submitting the petition, he would recuse himself and both of us would submit ourselves to the Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petition for a fair and transparent investigation, but unfortunately, I was silenced, and I was suspended.

“I was suspended for six months amongst many other stringent conditions such as taking away my security, taking away all the official vehicles and other items that were handed over to me as a senator. My salaries will be cut off. I must not appear anywhere near the National Assembly, and for six months, I’m not to introduce or present myself as a senator locally in Nigeria or internationally.

“That means I’m here illegally, but I have no other place to go but to come here and speak to you women because this is a bigger picture. It depicts the crisis of women in political representation. My suspension is not just about me—it’s about the systemic exclusion of women from political leadership in Nigeria. This is a clear case of political victimisation, punishment for speaking out against impunity, corruption, and gender-based violence.

“The Senate’s actions are an assault on democracy. I was elected by my constituents to represent them, yet a few powerful men have unilaterally decided to silence their voices by suspending me for six months. My call for an open and transparent investigation into harassment allegations has been met with hostility instead of accountability.

“If a female senator can be treated this way in the full view of the world, imagine what ordinary Nigerian women go through every day in workplaces, universities.”

After heating her detailed explanation, the IPU-UN meeting promised to get the response from Senator Akpabio before coming to a resolution. But dismissed Natasha’s submissions at the Senate plenary on Thursday. The Senate President said that Akpoti-Uduaghan had “attempted to embarrass Nigeria” with her address at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference in New York.

He said: “She has externalized the matter by attempting to embarrass the Federal Republic of Nigeria by going to give a narrative at the IPU-UN event — totally different from what occurred in the senate.”

He said that the Kogi Central Senator bypassed Senate’s internal parliamentary mechanisms and the judiciary by taking her allegations to the international stage.

“We have our own internal mechanisms of resolving issues in Nigeria. Outside this parliament, we also have the judiciary, and she is already standing before it. Even here, she has brought a petition but has not allowed us to investigate it. She went to court but has not allowed the court to investigate it. Now, she has taken the matter to the international community, and she may not even allow them to investigate it. She may decide to run to… I don’t know where.

“The reality is that we remain resolute. We are law-abiding. We operate through the rules of the Senate, which is an extension of the powers and privileges given to us by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Though some people may want to look at the saga as something between a man and a woman, it is far bigger than that. In the Senate, nothing is too small to be ignored. I once wrote here that Senator Adolphus Wabara as Senate President had stopped a lift just to greet a senator who was apparently oblivious of his presence in the lift. And when I asked his why he did that, he said, not saying a proper good morning to a senator could amount to gross misconduct!

Now that the whole matter has been tendered in the village square, there are some lessons to be learnt. One is that presiding officers must learn to read the mood of the chamber to neutralize any arrow coming from the axis of evil. It is not every situation that warrant a show of force because if Akpabio had closed the chamber to allow house cleansing that day, perhaps Natasha’s anger would not have snowballed. But some would say that the senate president has earned the support of his colleagues with a vote of confidence, I will tell you, a vote of confidence in the parliament is a panicky measure. The Yoruba would say enu ti araye fi n pe adegun naa ni won nfi npe adeogun. (literally, interpreted to mean the same mouth that say yea today can say no tomorrow). In the heat of the Bribe-for0-budget allegations against Senate President Wabara, Senators rose from a meeting to pass a vote of confidence, believing that whatever issues were there would be resolved through internal mechanisms, but some strange calls to many of the Senators overnight turned The Mansion, the official residence of the Senate President to a ghost town overnight.  It is important not to ignite the fire or not to allow the fire around you, so you won’t have to sweat unduly. Akpabio may need to ask the likes of Senate President David Mark, who spent eight years on the hot seat and the likes of Senators Bukola Saraki and Ahmad Lawal, how many banana peels their scooped off the floor. to guarantee their tenures. As I was concluding this piece, I heard another piece of smoke oozing from the side of the room, linked to this same quarrel over a seat in the Senate. Once Akpabio succeeds in quenching this, my message for him is clear, don’t start the fire, because the “axis of evil” presents a clear and present danger.

Ends.  

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