Once again, decorum has flown from the Nigerian Senate. She is perching patiently in an elevated corner, waiting for the right time to descend in the chamber again. What is currently playing out between the Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan and the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio on one hand; and the same Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan and the Senate as an institution on the other, is simply typical. We appear used to these kinds of drama, and we now seem to enjoy the shows while they last. While these dramas unfurl, the ordinary citizen watches, sometimes with bemusement, and bewilderment at the peculiar immodesty. To a lot of people though, indiscretions in the legislature mean nothing. After all, we see it happen many times too in the so-called developed countries and senior democracies.
In the 1980s when we the younger people listened to the radio both out of compulsion and lack of choice, reports of fights in the Japanese legislature was a common occurrence. There were also reports of the legislators in that country throwing chairs and injuring one another. When they eventually found a solution to the problem of throwing chairs at one another, we also heard the reports on the radio. The solution? There was a decision to rivet the chairs in their legislative house of assembly. It saved them the injuries and also saved them the huge cost of repairing broken chairs, heads and limbs.
But what were they always fighting for in their assembly? Why were they engaging in hot altercations and fights? Well, the answer to the questions are in the records of their socio-economic wellbeing compared to what we have here. Here, the difference seems to be that we fail to reckon with the cause and trajectory of their legislative quarrels. Regardless of how hard we are hit by economic hardship and insecurity, Nigerian legislators do not have a notable record of standing firmly and fighting on issues of citizens’ welfare. Rather, it has always been fights because of political party, ego, privileges (principalities) and power. Not many legislative fights are recorded in Nigeria due to the airborne inflation, intractable energy and power crisis; benumbing insecurity and government insincerity. No, that hardly ever happens.
Of course, it is still the same issues that have triggered a new wave of controversy in the senate. Natasha rejected her new seat and Akpabio said her rejection and how she did it was insubordination. He directed the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove Natasha from the chamber, citing her privilege but Akpabio will not have any of it. Akpabio as the Senate President could not stomach what Bukola Saraki tolerated as the Senate President. Saraki did not direct that he be ushered out of the senate chamber. Now, our distinguished Senate President has set a precedent and now presents as the case of the proverbial “Afokeemu”. Afokeemu is the person who broke the household’s communal drinking gourd. The Yoruba say his name would be on the lips of everyone in the household.
Natasha too has been in our very faces. The media has helped to create the image of a fighter who has stood against odds and oppression. We also have in our hands a survivor. About the most recent of her travails readily comes to mind. Ex-Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State was also in the trenches with this woman. What pitted them was her audacity to challenge the White Lion and openly make a show of her wins against the man in total control of the Confluence State. The drama that preceded the 2023 election ultimately separated the duo. The main road leading to Akpoti-Uduaghan’s senatorial district was blocked with some earthmoving equipment and a huge hole dug on it. Citizens of the state and electoral officials only discovered the destruction of the road in the morning of the day of the election. The state government of Yahaya Bello said the noise about the destruction of the road was the people making a mountain out of a molehill. They said, like a tailor, you have to do what appears like the destruction of the cloth material before a dress could be made from it.
But the people said no, that they were retards; that the cutting of the road was a deliberate act to prevent elections from taking place in areas where Natasha is popular. Yahaya Bello’s government said that was not true, and insisted that they were only reconstructing the road. Events proved that the government’s reason for destroying the road on the eve of an election was a barefaced and weak lie. It also showed who the weaker one was in that instance. Undeniably, the trickeries of Yahaya Bello and his errand boys, who were obviously under the influence of superior orders, added to the cause for the emergence of Natasha as Kogi Central senator. Rather than stop her, she gained strength from the incident and became what she is today.
However, this seems beguiling because one vivacious Dino Melaye could not survive in the same murky political waters of Kogi which Natasha successfully swam. Distinguished ex-Senator Melaye is now up and about with other things that are important to him. After a comprehensive failure in an attempt to return to the Senate, he has taken to those hobbies he gave the world a glimpse of. He makes occasional music on social media and flaunts his various luxurious cars.
Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan is now faced with a new challenge. Like when you hear the chant of: “another challenge o, another challenge o…!” by student-proponents of ‘aluta’, she is in the centre of another challenge. Akpoti-Uduaghan is off the trail of Yahaya Bello, a man the EFCC is presently feeding a spoonful of problems, but is now in the arena with the President of the Senate. That this sprouted prominently less than two years of their being together in the 10th Senate makes it look like Natasha is the problem here. From some quarters, Natasha is the crooked firewood that upsets the fire. They see her like smoke which cannot be hidden for long. This is part of the opinions out there, and each is entitled to their contentions as long as they are legal and do not affect the facts of the matter. We hold our opinions and expect the senate probe of the woman and her accusations to begin. It would also have been very nice if her request to have it televised live would be granted. Then, the watching world would draw their conclusions and, like her Yahaya Bello issue, we would have a closure.
Again, this matter has been made to look like it is the Senate as an institution that has a quarrel with Senator Natasha. I do not think this to be the case. I am of the strong belief that the problem she has is with Senator Akpabio as a person and not the Senate as an institution. We might have to draw that line and leave that as a distinct phenomenon. We have heard her allege several occasions of being put down and being undermined even as a chairman of a senate committee. She had also claimed that on a number of occasions, she had been strangely removed from local and foreign legislative trips, claiming that she had to embark on some of the trips using her personal funds. Natasha has also gone to court and joined in the suit against Akpabio/president of the senate is a senior legislative aide of Akpabio’s. These are pointers to the contention that the matter is more between the two senators than it is with the institution.
However, Natasha’s outspokenness would irk some of the senators who are both loyal to the Akpabio leadership and susceptible to his patronage as the first among equals. It is therefore not out of place for some of such senators to see her from the African societal prism which is patriarchal. We also know that in Nigeria, we tend to smell a problem when a woman rises beyond certain levels of our consideration. I believe that fair is fair and we should not ride roughshod on people because we can and when the opportunity presents itself.
Problems have been weaved around the legs of Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. The senate called it “disorderly conduct.” We shall listen to her defence against “disorderly conduct” before the Senate’s ethics committee. It is a charge that already sounds like a verdict. But, indeed, is it really about seating? The committee might help us. Natasha said it is a game of the loins…. This coital hue might be outside the purview of the Senate committee. But we might soon hear more, more about how Akpabio asked for that which is sat on.
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