The crisis in the Senate between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has created some embarrassment for Nigeria. On February 20, 2025, the senator representing Kogi Central had a shouting match with the Senate President over the reallocation of seats. Akpabio eventually ordered that she be walked out of the Senate chambers.
Shortly after that, Akpoti-Uduaghan granted a TV interview in which she accused the Senate President of victimising her because she refused his repeated sexual advances. That brought a twist to the matter. Subsequently, she submitted a petition for sexual harassment against Akpabio. On March 6, she was suspended from the Senate for six months.
Opinions have been divided on this case. Many have supported Akpoti-Uduaghan, noting that it is another example of the persecution women face in Nigeria. Many others supported the Senate’s stand on the matter, arguing that Akpoti-Uduaghan was unruly and recalcitrant in a matter that should have been resolved in a simple way. Some also noted that since she had previously used a sexual harassment allegation against Reno Omokri, an aide to President Goodluck Jonathan, which was proved to be false and which she subsequently deleted subsequently online, her words cannot be trusted, especially since she provided no evidence. Yet, some other people used the same argument to show that Akpabio had a case to answer having been accused in the past by a former Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Dr Joi Nunieh.
Did Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan handle the matter the best way that would achieve the result? This is open to debate. Her argument was that if she had agreed to move to the new seat and complain from there, nothing would have come out of it. She noted that her new seat was obscure.
Her fellow senators are not happy with her, including the few female senators. They complained that she disrespected them by not listening to any of them when she was being appealed to during the incident. This included the leaders of her party, the PDP, in the Senate. They also noted that she was not fully grounded by the rules of the Senate.
It should be noted that the primary issue in the matter is the change of the seat of Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan and her reaction to it. This matter should be separated from the secondary matter, which is sexual harassment.
Is it part of the Senate tradition or rule not to give Senators any notice before they are moved? Akpoti-Uduaghan said she was at the Senate the previous day and was not informed that she would move the next day. She arrived the next day and was told that her seat had changed. But she insisted on sitting on her old seat and speaking from there, which led to the Senate President not allowing her to speak.
There are counterarguments that those who bring changes to a system do not conform. For example, if Rosa Parks had conformed to the rule that Black Americans must give up their bus seat for Whites, that unjust rule would not have been changed. By refusing to move, Akpoti-Uduaghan had brought attention to the matter, even though she has suffered some personal loss. But others have argued that the mode of her reaction to the matter made it hard to get her colleagues, including her party members and fellow female senators, to support her.
The next point is the issue of sexual harassment. Women in Nigeria face sexual harassment to a high degree. Sexual jokes, catcalls, sexist comments, and sexual blackmail against women are taken for granted. Many do not even see anything wrong in making sexually suggestive comments against women. From schools to churches, to mosques, to universities and workplaces, female folk face sexual challenges. They are sexually molested even by those who are supposed to protect them. They are blackmailed that they will not pass their exams or get a job or get promoted if they do not offer their body. Film directors and producers have been accused of denying roles to actresses who refuse to offer their bodies to them. Banks have been accused of putting their staff, especially the female ones, under immense pressure, which makes them offer their bodies to receive huge deposits from customers. Some owners of restaurants, pubs, or “beer parlours” even get angry with any of their servers who protest when touched by men.
Given this background, women should be protected against predatory men. The West has taken care of this by coming hard on sexual harassment. Even suggestive comments that could be taken as harmless in Nigeria, like telling a lady “you’re hot”, are tagged sexual harassment in most Western countries. That makes people, especially men, to be cautious with their words and actions when dealing with women.
However, because many men have also been accused falsely and jailed, accusations of sexual harassment must be thoroughly investigated and judged based on concrete evidence. A man should not be tagged guilty until proven innocent. Rather, the accuser should provide evidence before a sexual harassment accusation is deemed valid. Sometimes, it may be hard for the victim to provide any form of evidence, because it will be her word against his word. But there should be an attempt to get something concrete that can be worked on to avoid punishing an innocent man.
In adding the sexual harassment angle to the issue, Akpoti-Uduaghan should have presented some evidence. In the absence of any evidence, she should have concentrated on the Senate seat reallocation matter.
However, from Akpabio’s perspective, the optics did not look good that he continued to preside over the matter in which he was the accused. One could argue that there was no concrete evidence presented by Akpoti-Uduaghan against him, but he should have stepped aside and allowed the Deputy Senate President to handle the case, just for the sake of transparency.
The Senate also did not act well in hurriedly passing judgment on Akpoti-Uduaghan. It looked like a hatchet job – just trying to fulfil all righteousness. It was even ridiculous that there was a court injunction stopping the Senate from proceeding with the matter. On March 4, Justice Obiora Egwuatu granted an ex parte order restraining the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions from conducting disciplinary proceedings against Akpoti-Uduaghan. That the Senate disregarded the Court was an act of lawlessness. How could the body that makes laws also break them? The principle of separation of powers states that neither the executive (Presidency) nor the Legislature has the power to disobey the court.
Furthermore, it makes no logical meaning that a legislator elected by a constituency should be suspended from the legislature. The person can be suspended from Senate committees but not from Senate sittings. That is a grave injustice to the legislator’s constituents. To suspend a legislator for six months is like suspending a state governor from governing a state for six months. In the absence of a governor, the deputy governor will take over and ensure that there is no vacuum, but a legislator has no deputy. Therefore, the constituency is bereft of a representative throughout the length of such a suspension.
The way the case has gone, it is hard to believe that it was just a minor issue that got blown out of proportion. On March 4, Justice Obiora Egwuatu granted an ex parte order restraining the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions from conducting disciplinary proceedings against Akpoti-Uduaghan. The Senate flouted it. But it would have been an opportunity for the Senate to showcase its thoroughness in any case.
