Suspended lawmaker representing Kogi Central in the Senate, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has claimed that the Nigerian Senate operates like a cult.
She also maintained her stance that Senate President, Godswill Akpabio made sexual advances towards her.
Speaking in an interview with the BBC, Akpoti-Uduaghan stated that senators avoid expressing opposing views in the upper chamber due to fear of retaliation. She described her six-month suspension for alleged gross misconduct as an attempt to silence her.
“I am being victimized. My suspension is a means of silencing me,” she said.
Recounting an incident, she alleged that during a visit to the country home of Senate President Godswill Akpabio, he made inappropriate advances toward her.
“We were at his country home. He was taking me around his house. My husband was walking behind us. He held my hand and then squeezed it in a very suggestive way. We women know what it means when a man squeezes our hands in a suggestive way.
“And he went, ‘Now that you’re in the Senate, I’ll make an opportunity for us to come here and have a good moment,’” she alleged.
On March 6, Akpoti-Uduaghan was suspended from the Senate for six months after she failed to appear before the Ethics and Privileges Committee.
When asked if Akpabio had made any inappropriate remarks toward her in the Senate, she said, “There was a time when I rushed to work forgetting to wear my ring. There were about five senators there. He said, ‘Oh Natasha, you are not wearing your ring. Is this an invitation to treat?’ You know, statements like this.”
Reacting to her claims, Senate Deputy Chief Whip Onyekachi Nwaebonyi dismissed the allegations, stating that Akpabio never made any inappropriate advances toward her.
Nwaebonyi also denied that the Senate was trying to silence Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying, “Senator Natasha’s legislative activities show this claim is not true.”
