Sign of the Father
by Jídé Salawu
A few weeks ago, on March 5, Nigerian senator Natasha H. Akpoti-Uduaghan—one of only four women in the 109-member senate—submitted a petition alleging sexual misconduct against Senate President Godswill Akpabio, an act that resulted in her suspension for “misconduct” the following day, and, eventually, in the eruption of a full-blown political scandal.
“The Senate President runs the Senate like a dictator, not a democrat,” Akpoti told the BBC. His harassment of her began in late 2023, she said, and more than once occurred in full view of fellow senators. “There is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom of expression and anyone who dares to go against him gets cut to size.”
From then onward, she says, Senate President Akpabio continued to harass her. He retaliated against her resistance by holding up her initiatives in the legislature; finally he caused her to be suspended from the Senate for six months, and for her security detail to be dismissed—no small matter in a country where politicians are not infrequently attacked and killed.
Nigerian male politicians typically consider themselves sacred beings whose every blemish must be ignored. So as expected, rather than resigning, the accused Senate President led a pack of his supporters in an attempt to turn the tables on Senator Akpoti, accusing her of fomenting a campaign of calumny against himself. But when the BBC asked the Senate President’s office to provide the details of Senator Akpoti’s alleged “misconduct,” none were forthcoming; and when asked the reason for depriving her of her security detail, Akpabio’s spokesman replied that the matter had been put to a vote and a majority had agreed to dismiss the senator's security personnel, and that it “had not been a unilateral decision of the senate president.”
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