Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, senator representing Kogi central, says her suspension from the national assembly was based on a pre-written script and driven by political motives.
Speaking during an interview with Adeola Fayehun, a US-based Nigerian journalist, Akpoti-Uduaghan said the March 6 incident was not spontaneous, but part of a “calculated plan”.
She said the claim that she disrupted proceedings over her seat was false.
“The impression being circulated is that I caused a scene over my seat. That is false,” she said.
“I raised a matter of privilege under chapter 4, Item 9b of the senate rules — a provision that demands immediate attention.
“But the senate president cut me off, ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove me, and directed the clerk to begin preparing my suspension letter. That wasn’t a reaction; it was a pre-written script.”
She accused Godswill Akpabio, the senate president, of abusing his office by unilaterally ordering her removal from the chamber.
“He has no authority to unilaterally suspend any senator on the floor. The way he handled it — like I was a staff member in his living room — was not only unlawful but also degrading,” she said.
“My reaction was in response to a decision he had clearly already made.”
Akpoti-Uduaghan said her suspension followed a formal petition she submitted against the senate leadership the day before.
“I believe my suspension was retaliatory. The ethics report they cited was merely a smokescreen. I had submitted allegations that shook the system, and the next day, I was silenced,” she said.
The lawmaker also addressed an allegation by Sandra Duru, who claimed the senator was trying to bring down the government led by someone from the south-west.
Akpoti-Uduaghan denied the allegation and said she is not driven by ethnic sentiments.
“People who know me know that I am not a tribalist. I respect and appreciate every tribe in Nigeria, every ethnicity,” she said.
“I am half Nigerian and half Ukrainian — who am I to talk about tribe when I am actually one part of the other world? That is not my nature; that is not my language.”
She alleged that Duru’s remarks were sponsored by political interests threatened by her wide support.
“If anybody said that, it’s probably her team, the people who have sponsored her,” she said.
“Her sponsors are the ones who have probably put those words to her because they knew that I had enjoyed a lot of support from Nigerians — not just in Kogi state, but across the country and even in the diaspora.”
Akpoti-Uduaghan claimed her cordial relationship with President Bola Tinubu angered the senate president.
“The senate president, Godswill Akpabio, also knows that I enjoyed a good relationship with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” she said.
“I have not said it in the open before, but I am saying it now, and that actually annoyed him because there was a time when the senate president told my husband, ‘Are you aware that your wife goes to see the President?’ and my husband told him he was aware.
“Whenever I have critical issues to raise — like before I brought up the issue of probing Ajaokuta — I did meet with Mr President to make sure he knew the nature of it, and he was okay with it. For other matters too, I have met him in person.
“So, I do not have a hostile relationship with the president, even though I am in the opposition. I keep saying, the good people of Kogi central voted me as a senator to work, not to antagonise or create enmity.
“I want the people to know my issue is with the senate president — not the entire senate, the Nigerian people, the institutions, or the presidency.”
Akpoti-Uduaghan was suspended from the senate for alleged gross misconduct following her seating arrangement altercation with Akpabio.
The lawmaker said she believed her suspension was illegal, unjust and a way of silencing her.
She also rejected the senate’s position that she was not suspended over her sexual harassment claim against Akpabio.
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