Femi Akintunde-Johnson
St is one of the curiosities of our democracy that the lawmaking chamber, designed to ventilate the will of the people and embody the spirit of representation, so often mutates into a petty conclave where personal vendettas and grandstanding are dressed up as constitutional rigour. The continuing persecution of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan is the latest instalment in this long-running tragicomedy, a case study in how the Nigerian political class manages to combine pettiness with a staggering disregard for the realities of the people they supposedly serve.
Back in March, Natasha – senator for Kogi Central – was bundled out of the red chamber under the convenient charge of insubordination. Her ‘crime’? Refusing to vacate an assigned seat. For this felony, the Senate invoked the guillotine of its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions and slammed her with a six-month suspension. Alongside went her salaries, aides, and the privileges of office.
This, remember, against the backdrop of her allegation that Senate President Godswill Akpabio had attempted sexual harassment – a claim briskly dismissed by the chamber. She insisted her suspension was political; the Senate swore it was enforcing discipline. Nigerians, long-schooled in political hypocrisy, could smell vendetta from a mile away.
The six months duly elapsed. By the calendar of March to September, she had “served her time”. In any serious democracy, this would have been the point for reconciliation, for allowing an elected representative to resume and give her people a voice. Instead, the Senate doubled down. A letter from the Acting Clerk to the National Assembly informed Natasha that she would remain barred until the Court of Appeal rules on her case.
To ordinary Nigerians battered by hunger, insecurity and collapsing infrastructure, this reads like a bad joke. The people of Kogi Central, voiceless for half a legislative year, must now endure indefinite silence because the Senate leadership has conjured a legalistic excuse. The Constitution, of course, provides no such prohibition. What exists is vindictiveness masquerading as principle.
Her party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) smelt blood immediately, accusing the APC-led Senate of silencing opposition and plotting creeping totalitarianism. Ordinarily, one could dismiss party rhetoric as predictable noise. But in this instance, the PDP is right. Natasha’s ordeal has gone beyond procedure; it is about power, gender, and the Senate President’s fragile ego.
Senior Advocates of Nigeria – men not exactly given to reckless sympathy – lined up to underline the absurdity. Adedayo Adedeji (SAN) reminded the Senate that while Section 60 of the 1999 Constitution empowers it to regulate procedure, Section 68 is clear that a member vacates a seat only in circumstances listed by the Constitution. Suspension cannot be twisted into indefinite banishment. Justice Binta Nyako had earlier cautioned against such excess, noting that half a legislative year in suspension already undermines representation.
Wale Balogun (SAN) put it bluntly: Natasha has served the six months, full stop. The litigation can go on, but nothing empowers the Senate to hold her hostage until judgment day. “Will she remain on perpetual suspension?” he asked. The question cuts through the legal fog: how can a punishment with a set duration suddenly morph into an indefinite exile?
Paul Obi (SAN), Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), and others echoed the same refrain: this is overreach, overkill, and a surreptitious extension of punishment. The Senate is effectively moving the goalposts, inventing a new rule just to prolong Natasha’s exclusion. Even prisoners walk free after serving their time; must a senator remain captive because her colleagues prefer vengeance?
Not everyone agrees. Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) took a more cautious line, saying both parties should slug it out in court until appeals are resolved. Fair enough, but that legalistic detour ignores the democratic outrage: millions of constituents are voiceless because of one man’s quarrel with a female colleague. The punishment has been served; the rest is petty embroidery.
Civil society is unimpressed. SERAP condemned the Senate’s manoeuvre as a travesty of justice and a violation of both the Constitution and international human rights treaties. They noted, rightly, that political speech deserves the highest tolerance in any democracy – especially when directed at those in power. “No one should ever be punished for speaking without permission,” they declared. A reminder that senators are not monarchs but public servants.
The tragedy, however, is not Natasha’s alone. It is the constituents of Kogi Central – ordinary men and women wrestling with joblessness and rising food prices – who have been denied representation. For half a year their voice was silenced; now it is to be silenced indefinitely, because the Senate prefers to indulge in vendetta rather than governance. It is this detachment from the Nigerian condition that stings the most.
When millions are unsure of their next meal, when kidnappers and bandits stalk highways, when hospitals are shells and schools crumble, the Senate is obsessed with whether one woman may sit in her assigned chair. Nigerians watch this spectacle and understand, yet again, why their democracy feels so alien.
At its core, the Natasha affair is not about furniture in the chamber; it is about whether institutions can rise above petty quarrels and respect representation. So far, the Senate has failed. What should have been a simple resumption has become an epic of spite. This is the pettiness of power, Nigerian-style: where the people’s business bows before bruised egos, and the Constitution bends like suya meat over hot coal.
Natasha’s ordeal proves one enduring truth: our political class is addicted to the theatre of humiliation. They suspend, expel, barricade, and issue pompous letters – not to strengthen democracy, but to remind Nigerians who holds the whip. Meanwhile, the country sinks deeper into despair. And perhaps the greatest irony is that the entire drama means nothing to the average Nigerian struggling to buy bread at ₦1,500.
History will not be kind to this episode. It will be remembered as yet another instance when those entrusted with the people’s mandate chose vindictiveness over responsibility, pettiness over principle, theatre over governance. And when the next senator runs afoul of the chamber’s grandees, Natasha’s ordeal will stand as a cautionary tale: in Nigeria’s Senate, the Constitution bows, and the people wait in silence.
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