{"id":6689,"date":"2025-06-02T11:24:34","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T11:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/?p=6689"},"modified":"2025-06-02T11:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T11:24:34","slug":"defamation-natasha-to-appear-in-court-tuesday-2nd-june-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/2025\/06\/02\/defamation-natasha-to-appear-in-court-tuesday-2nd-june-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Defamation: Natasha to appear in court Tuesday 2nd June 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The suspended senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District of Kogi State, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, will appear in court on Tuesday, as summoned.<\/p>\n

This was confirmed by her lead counsel, West Idahosa (SAN), on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Idahosa, however, expressed uncertainty about whether the Federal Government planned to arraign her on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

He said that whatever the plans of the Federal Government, Akpoti-Uduaghan, as a law-abiding citizen, would comply with the court\u2019s directives.<\/p>\n

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The Federal Government, through the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mohammed Abubakar, filed criminal charges against Akpoti-Uduaghan, alleging that she made defamatory statements during a live television broadcast and a private telephone conversation.<\/p>\n

These statements reportedly targeted the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio and former Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello.<\/p>\n

According to the charge, filed on May 16, 2025, at the Federal Capital Territory High Court and marked CR\/297\/25, Akpoti-Uduaghan is accused of making a statement during an appearance on Politics Today on Channels TV on April 3, 2025, where she alleged that Akpabio and Bello discussed plans to assassinate her.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was part of the meeting, the discussions that Akpabio had with Yahaya Bello that night\u2014 to eliminate me\u2026 he then emphasised that I should be killed in Kogi,\u201d the charge quotes her as saying.<\/p>\n

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Additionally, the government accused Akpoti-Uduaghan of making defamatory remarks in a telephone conversation on March 27, 2025.<\/p>\n

In the conversation with a woman named Dr Sandra Duru, Akpoti-Uduaghan allegedly claimed that Akpabio was linked to organ harvesting involving the late Iniubong Umoren, purportedly for the benefit of his ailing wife.<\/p>\n

Akpabio, Bello, and four others have been listed as key witnesses in the trial.<\/p>\n

In a phone interview, the Idahosa reiterated the readiness of the legal team to defend Akpoti-Uduaghan in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the case is called tomorrow, we will respond accordingly with our client.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue of protest is irrelevant to us \u2014 we are lawyers, and our focus is on defending charges we believe can be contested. Protests are the domain of civil societies and others in that terrain,\u201d Idahosa said.<\/p>\n

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He further stated, \u201cOur client is a law-abiding citizen. Why wouldn\u2019t she be there? It\u2019s a summons we have undertaken. Only disrespectful institutions that disregard court orders would fail to appear, and she is not in that category.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the possibility of arraignment, Idahosa noted, \u201cWe don\u2019t know. We saw a notice of amended charges. We don\u2019t know what they are trying to do. They\u2019ve amended the charges once and could do so again\u2014it\u2019s their decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The suspended senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District of Kogi State, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, will appear in court on Tuesday, as summoned. This was confirmed by her lead counsel, West Idahosa (SAN), on Sunday. Idahosa,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6689","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\/6689","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=6689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6691,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions\/6691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}