“I am being victimised. My suspension is a means of silencing me.”
Sen. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, (PDP, Kogi central), has described the Nigerian Senate as operating like a “cult,” where lawmakers avoid expressing dissenting opinions for fear of retaliation.
Speaking in an interview with the BBC, Akpoti-Uduaghan alleged that her recent suspension was aimed at silencing her.
Parliament Reports recalls that the senator was suspended from the red chamber on March 6 for what was described as “gross misconduct.”
She said, “I am being victimised. My suspension is a means of silencing me,” she said, adding:
“It was episode after episode, moment after moment. We were at his country home. He was taking me around his house. My husband was walking behind us. He held my hand.
“He then squeezed my hands in a very suggestive way. We women, we know what it means when a man squeezes our hands in a suggestive way.
“And he went, ‘now that you’re in the senate, I’ll make an opportunity for us to come here and have a good moment’, you know, along that line.”
When asked if similar advances were made in the senate or within the chamber, she said, “There was a time when I rushed to work forgetting to wear my ring, there were about five senators there. He said, ‘Oh Natasha, you are not wearing your ring, is this an invitation to treat?’ You know, statements like this.”
However, reacting to the allegations, the senate’s deputy chief whip, Sen. Onyekachi Nwebonyi, dismissed Akpoti-Uduaghan’s claims. Speaking to the BBC, he said there was never a time the senate president made sexual advances toward her, either in his home or within the senate chamber.
Nwebonyi also rejected her assertion that the senate was trying to silence her, adding, “Senator Natasha’s legislative activities show this claim is not true.”
