{"id":4620,"date":"2025-03-06T09:08:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T09:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/?p=4620"},"modified":"2025-03-06T09:08:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T09:08:27","slug":"sexual-harassment-senate-dismisses-natashas-petition-against-akpabio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/2025\/03\/06\/sexual-harassment-senate-dismisses-natashas-petition-against-akpabio\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexual Harassment: Senate Dismisses Natasha\u2019s Petition Against Akpabio"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senate dismisses Natasha\u2019s sexual harassment petition against Akpabio<\/h2>\n

The Senate Ethics and Privileges Committee said, among other things, that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan violated the rules of the upper chamber by signing the petition herself.<\/h2>\n
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The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions has dismissed the petition filed by Kogi Central Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan against senate president\u00a0 Godswill Akpabio.<\/p>\n

In the petition, Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan accused Mr Akpabio of sexual harassment, abuse of office, and obstruction of legislative duties.<\/p>\n

It was referred to the committee earlier today during the plenary.<\/p>\n

Chairman of the Committee, Neda Imasuen (Edo South), ruled that the petition was \u201cdead on arrival\u201d and would not be entertained by the Senate.<\/p>\n

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Mr Imasuen, a member of the Labour Party (LP), cited a violation of Senate Order 40 (4), which stipulates that no senator may submit a petition personally signed by themselves.<\/p>\n

Basis for rejection<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mr Imasuen argued that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s petition violated the Senate\u2019s procedural rules, as she had personally signed the document.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe petition she presented today is actually dead on arrival and that petitions having been submitted by her will not be entertained by this committee. She\u2019s not here, and I can understand why she\u2019s not here on the orders of her lawyers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Senate Order 40 (4) explicitly states that \u201cNo senator may present to the Senate a petition signed by himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on this provision, Mr Imasuen ruled that the committee would not consider her allegations against Mr Akpabio.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo senator can sign a petition,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Kogi senator did not attend the committee\u2019s sitting.<\/p>\n

Rejection of Court Order<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mr Imasuen also addressed an interim order from the Federal High Court in Abuja, which sought to halt the Senate Committee\u2019s investigation into Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s alleged misconduct.<\/p>\n

He dismissed the court\u2019s directive, arguing that the judiciary has no authority over internal parliamentary proceedings.<\/p>\n

The committee chairman described the court order as \u201cunacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is unacceptable. If there\u2019s a matter before them , we do not touch such matters. We know as parliamentarians, we know what our rights and privileges are, it is not subjected to any court. Whatever happens in the Senate is not subject to any court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue before us has to do with what happened on the floor of the Senate, and there are rules, and it is not subjected to any court,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Panel to probe alleged misconduct instead<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While rejecting her petition, Mr Imasuen said the committee would proceed with an investigation into Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s alleged disorderly conduct on the floor of the Senate.<\/p>\n

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The incident in question involved her refusal to comply with the sitting arrangement during plenary on 20 February.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on our rule book and other documents that are available before us, we will sit on disorderly misconduct,\u201d Mr Imasuen said.<\/p>\n

The committee\u2019s ruling suggests that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan may not fully understand the Senate\u2019s procedural rules before submitting her petition.<\/p>\n

By signing the document herself, she inadvertently violated Order 40 (4), which explicitly prohibits senators from presenting petitions they have personally signed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate dismisses Natasha\u2019s sexual harassment petition against Akpabio The Senate Ethics and Privileges Committee said, among other things, that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan violated the rules of the upper chamber by signing the petition herself. The...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4622,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620\/revisions\/4622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}