By Bukola Kayode
The Senator representing Kogi Central Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan has dragged Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, to the court for what she described as defamatory statements made against her.
Akpoti-Uduaghan who was elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), clashed with the Senate President over the reassignment of her seat.
The Senate on Tuesday resolved to probe the clash between Akpoti-Uduaghan and the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio over a change of her seat in the Red Chamber.
The Senate resolved to have the Kogi Senator appear before its Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions for disciplinary review.
The committee, chaired by Senator Neda Imaseun, has been given two weeks to investigate the matter and submit its findings.
Read also: https://frontlinenews.com.ng/drama-as-sen-natasha-akpoti-and-akpabio-clash-during-plenary/
Meanwhile, in a suit filed before the Federal Capital Territory High Court on 25 February 2025, the President of the Senate, and the Senior Legislative Aide to the Senate President, Mfon Patrick, were listed as the second and third defendants.
In the suit, marked CV/737/25, Akpoti-Uduaghan, through her lawyer, Victor Giwa, Natasha alleged that defamatory statements were made by the Senate President and published by his aide on Facebook.
The Kogi Senator’s lawyer said in the brief that the post, entitled “Is the Local Content Committee of the Senate Natasha’s Birthright?” included a statement suggesting that Akpoti-Uduaghan believed being a lawmaker was only about “pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the chambers.”
Giwa argued that the statement was defamatory, provocative, and disparaging, lowering his client’s dignity in the eyes of her colleagues and the public.
She asked the court to make “A declaration that the words, ‘It is bottled anger by the Kogi lawmaker, who knows nothing about legislative rules. She thinks being a lawmaker is all about pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the chambers,’ used and written by the third defendant at the prompting of the first and second defendants, were defamatory and intended to cause public opprobrium and disaffection toward the claimant.”
The lawmaker urged the court to restrain the defendants and their associates from making further defamatory statements against her on any platform.
The plaintiff also asked the court for “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, whether acting by themselves or through their agents, privies, assigns, or associates, from further publishing or causing to be published the said defamatory words or any similar publications about the claimant on social media or in any other manner capable of defaming her.”
Furthermore, Akpoti-Uduaghan asked the court to order the defendants to pay her N100 billion in general damages and N300 million as litigation costs.
“An order for the payment of the sum of N100,000,000,000 as general damages. An order for the payment of the sum of N300,000,000 as the cost of action,” she prayed the court.
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