Institutions should be subjected to test, says senator affirms
Through a combination of factors, including pressure from within and the international community, the Senate reluctantly swallowed its pride and lifted the stonewall it sought to place against the resumption from the six-month suspension it placed on Sen Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi Central). The Senate, through the Sergeant-at-Arms, yesterday, removed the barricades, thus marking the end of the insurrection against her alleged recalcitrant behaviour and gross insubordination to the leadership of the upper legislative chamber.
In a video clip sent to journalists covering the Red Chamber, Deputy Director, Sergeant-at-Arms, Alabi Adedeji, who unsealed the Kogi senator’s office, said he was directed to unseal the office by the top hierarchy of the legislature.
However, Spokesman of the Senate, Adaramodu Yemi, who spoke to The Guardian on the phone, failed to provide clarifications about how the rapprochement was reached, even as he feigned ignorance by merely stating, “If something was sealed before and now unsealed, it means it has been unsealed.”
But findings by The Guardian revealed that the spat between the female senator and the Senate leadership was becoming a source of international embarrassment, especially given that the fresh drama was coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
Although a member of the Presidency’s bureaucracy confided in the newspaper that President Bola Tinubu was concerned by the sporadic reference to the allegations of high-handedness against a female lawmaker, principal officers of the Senate, who met on Monday, kept their lips sealed about their decisions.
Pressures accelerated weeks back when the Senate indicated its unwillingness to allow Akpoti-Uduaghan to resume plenary after serving out the six-month suspension, with the leadership of the National Labour Congress (NLC) threatening to hold a mass action to press for her reintegration.
A source in the office of the Senate President confirmed unofficially that the leadership, after its meeting on Monday, directed that the Kogi senator’s office be unsealed, even as it was gathered that some senators were dissatisfied at the turn the development was taking.
Most senators had reportedly demanded a fresh open debate on the matter during the Senate’s first sitting, initially scheduled for yesterday, but the sitting was abruptly postponed for two weeks till October 7, 2025.
The development, it was learnt, threw up sharp divisions among senators, legal challenges in court, and mounting public pressure over the continued absence of representation for the people of Kogi Central.
Senior lawyers such as Prof Mike Ozekhome (SAN) and Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), in separate statements, condemned the prolonged exclusion of Akpoti-Uduaghan from parliamentary proceedings, stating that it amounted to the disenfranchisement of one of three senatorial districts in Kogi State.
Ozekhome described the situation as an affront to representative democracy, adding, “You cannot punish a constituency because of a legislator. Suspending her is suspending the will of her people.”
He cited constitutional provisions and Supreme Court decisions such as Amaechi v. INEC to argue that the mandate belongs to the people, not the individual.
Adegboruwa, in his own opinion, said the Senate’s stance lacked any constitutional support, warning that indefinite suspension without fresh resolution is “legally void.”
Worried by a barrage of criticisms that emanated from within and outside the country against the suspension of Akpoti-Uduaghan in March 2025, the Senate had vigorously defended its decision, particularly before the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). It stated that she was not suspended for her sexual harassment allegations against Senate President Godswill Akpabio, but for gross misconduct and violation of Senate rules.
Reading from a statement signed by Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women Affairs, KafilatOgbara, told the IPU: “The suspension followed multiple breaches of parliamentary protocol, not any allegation of harassment.”
According to the Senate, her offences included refusal to sit in her designated seat during plenary, speaking without recognition, and repeatedly defying the Senate’s Committee on Ethics and Privileges.
Meanwhile, Shehu Sani, who represented Kaduna Central between 2015 and 2019, expressed fears that Akpoti-Uduaghan’s return remained unlikely if tied to a pending court decision.
In a continued show of defiance, Akpoti-Uduaghan, who stormed the National Assembly on Monday, denounced what she described as fraudulent and dictatorial practices within the Senate, just as she vowed never to apologise for an ‘injustice’ meted out against her.
Speaking to newsmen in her office while seated, the senator said: “The document that led to my illegal suspension—prepared by the Senate President’s office and endorsed with fraudulent signatures—was an affront to our democracy. If an apology is what they expect, then we have a long dance ahead.”
The senator expressed gratitude to a wide range of allies who rallied behind her cause: civic activists Oby Ezekwesili and Aisha Yesufu; human rights lawyer, Femi Falana; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former Senate President Bukola Saraki; and political parties, including the Labour Party (LP), the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and her Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
She also thanked professional and labour bodies such as the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Nigeria Labour Congress for their statements of solidarity, adding that mounting public pressure forced Senate leadership to reverse course.
The lawmaker reflected on what she called “six months of survival,” noting that she and her supporters endured an unjust suspension, a recall attempt, and several acts of intimidation.
“We survived the recall. We survived the blockade of roads and waterways to Kogi that forced us to fly in by helicopter. We survived the blackmail from a so-called woman on Facebook. It’s amazing what we had to go through,” she said.
