Monday June 2, 2025|
The Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has reaffirmed her earlier allegations of sexual harassment against Senate President Godswill Akpabio, which she said she is still seeking an opportunity to formally present before a court or investigative panel, Parallel FACTS reports
Natasha, who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Adeola Fayehun on YouTube on May 31, 2025, said, “I stand by my sexual abuse. I will never apologise. I’m not afraid of what will happen, and I will not apologise.”
The senator also asserted that her suspension from the Senate was not the result of a simple seating dispute but a premeditated effort by Senate President Godswill Akpabio to silence her dissent.
She noted that she once shared a cordial relationship with Akpabio, partly due to his longstanding friendship with her husband. However, personal and political conflicts emerged when she resisted the Senate President’s alleged corruption demands.
“The narrative being pushed, that I caused a scene over a seat, is a lie,” she stated emphatically.
“I raised a matter of privilege under Chapter 4, Item 9b of the Senate Rules, which demands immediate attention. But Senate President Akpabio abruptly cut me off, ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort me out, and instructed the Clerk to prepare my suspension letter. That wasn’t a spontaneous reaction—it was a script already written.”
“He has no authority to suspend a senator unilaterally on the Senate floor. The manner in which he ordered my suspension—as if I were a staff member in his living room—was not only unlawful but degrading. My reaction was a response to a decision already made,” she stated.
She further alleged that her troubles intensified after she submitted a formal petition against the Senate leadership a day before her suspension.
“My suspension was retaliation. The ethics report they referenced was merely a cover. I had raised serious allegations that shook the establishment, and the very next day, I was silenced.”
Speaking in during the exclusive interview, Akpoti-Uduaghan detailed what she noted as systemic coercion within the National Assembly, alleging that as the then chairman of the Senate committee on Local Content, she was expected to extract returns from ministries and agencies under her oversight, including the Minister of Petroleum, Gas, and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
She disclosed that her relationship with the Senate President began to sour when he demanded she submit a “report progress”.
Believing this to mean a formal presentation of her work, she said she prepared a PowerPoint document outlining meetings, action plans and timelines, but Akpabio laughed off the report.
“I was like, oh, why are you laughing, sir? He said don’t I know the meaning of reporting progress. And then he now referred me to a senior Senator. He said, why don’t you go meet this person and let him educate you on what report progress means”, she recounted.
“The senior senator bluntly said I should return money or jobs from committee dealings to him. When I asked how, I was told to pressure agencies, like the Minister of Petroleum or the Executive Secretary, to bring funds or positions for the Senate President. That is corruption, and I refused.”
Her refusal to comply, she said, fueled ongoing conflict with Akpabio. “I told my husband and confronted Akpabio directly, saying I wouldn’t participate. He replied, ‘Then you’re not fit to chair any committee.’ That’s when I realised this wasn’t about my performance—it was about illicit returns.”
“I was like, I can’t do that. And they were like, well, that’s the norm under him,” she added.
She claimed that Akpabio himself confronted her, saying, “If you don’t know how to harass the ministers and the executive secretary of local content, that means you’re not capable of running the committee.”
Akpoti-Uduaghan said the Senate President’s idea of deliverables is not tied to objectivity and performance, but more like what returns come to him.”
Natasha also alleged that Akpabio repeatedly asked her to bring the executive secretary to meet with him, requests she said she refused.
“To date, I never took or I never forced or coerced any of the ministers to meet with him. If they met the Senate President on their own, I don’t know about that. That’s just to give you an idea of the coercion that happens behind the scenes that people don’t know.”
The suspended senator also alleged that senators face coercion from unnamed political “fathers,” especially during budget negotiations. “Akpabio has turned Senate sessions into farcical distractions, masking behind-the-scenes lobbying and intimidation. What I experienced, many others silently endure.”
She further distanced herself from widespread public suspicion that all lawmakers engage in budget padding. “I don’t know about it. I’ve never padded budget, but I’ve seen the unnecessary pressure that a number of senators have to face, not because they were willing to do it for themselves, but because they have to satisfy some political lords right in the Senate.”
