The lawmaker representing Kogi Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has been in a running battle with the Senate leadership over a series of issues.
The lawmaker has made headlines in recent months after she accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment, a claim the Akwa Ibom lawmaker has equally denied.
She was thereafter suspended by the Red Chamber for violation of certain rules, an action the Kogi lawmaker labelled as unjust. She recently manouvered a ban on rallies and public gatherings imposed by the Kogi State Government to attend a homecoming event organised in her honour.
In a much-anticipated move, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) threw out a petition for the female lawmaker’s recall.
On Channels Television’s Lunchtime Politics programme, a former Kogi State House of Assembly aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kuburat Kolo, speaks on Akpoti-Uduaghan’s recent political battles and how she’s been navigating them.
Enjoy the excerpts…
Were you at the rally? What did you hear and what is playing out in the senatorial district?
I wasn’t actually present at the rally, but I followed it closely on social media. Well, the 1999 Constitution provides for her to say what is on her mind; she’s a Nigerian, she’s an Igbira woman and she’s allowed to visit her people back home and what you clearly saw was somebody visiting her people at home and she made sure she didn’t break all the laws they put in place. It’s not really laws because there are instructions, they are not laws. It is not written anywhere that she can’t go to Kogi Central.
She landed in a chopper, and she was landed in her country home in Ihima and she talked to her people; they were the ones that sent her to the National Assembly. So, they need to be given feedback on what has been happening on the national stage. That is what happened.
The state government is always in the habit of trying to strangulate the people’s will and it comes with the pretense of security concerns. As we saw during her election for her senatorial bid, the roads going to her home in Ihima were dug out just to frustrate her movement and the thing is every time they do this, Senator Natasha comes out stronger.
One of the things the state government said was that it doesn’t want a situation where violence will be incited, and people will resort to self-help. Would Senator Natasha have taken responsibility if things had gone wrong?
Well, what I want you to know is that Senator Natasha is not a careless talker. Before she made the statement she made, I’m very sure she had all her facts in place, and she’s a very peaceful person and her followers know what she’s all about.
So, even before it happened, when they issued that statement that convoys were going to be restricted, we all know it was because of her because they have given reasons why convoys are going to be restricted: the government cited an unrest that started in 2023 in Kogi East in Ankpa Local Government Area between two towns — it was mainly on mining and that happened a long time.
Ankpa to Ihima, there are about seven local governments in between. So, why would the problem in Ankpa necessarily obstruct activities in Ihima?
They are also talking about the communal clash in Koto Karfe which is about two hours away from Ihima. So, these are all fabricated stories to restrict her movement. If you would remember, recently, the Governor of Bayelsa State, Duoye Diri, cancelled a pro-Nyesom Wike rally at a press conference.
So, if it was that serious, they should have come out for a press conference but the whole idea was ill-thought; they didn’t think it through. I think the police were not even carried along. Mr Kingsley Fanwo has been appointed to do a lot of damage control when these things happened; he’s almost left his position as information commissioner to tend to trivialities like this.
Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan has been having a running battle with the Senate leadership, Senator Godswill Akpabio and now the Kogi State Government. What do you see play out in the senator’s botched recall.
Well, the petition for her recall was all a sham because as you saw from the crowd that made it to her house despite all the restrictions, do they look like people that are ready to recall Senator Natasha? She’s loved by her people, and I think it’s going to fall like a pack of cards, it will have a domino effect, it is going nowhere.
The recall, as we already saw videos on social media, people sat down in their houses thumbprinting and doing all sorts of things. For God’s sake, how can you say that a recall was done within three days? Nobody knew about it.
I’ve contested in an election before and it took us six months of vigorous campaign, canvassing to bring people out of their houses to vote. Interestingly, all we were able to muster in the election that brought Senator Natasha in was just over a 100,000 people and within three days, they have the signatures of 250,000. In fact, this recall should have a special place in the Guinness World Records (GWR) because I just don’t know what it is.
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