AKEEM NAFIU writes that lawyers have queried the rationale behind the Senate’s refusal to allow the Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, resume her legislative duties after serving out the six months suspension imposed on her by the red chamber for alleged insubordination

Some senior lawyers have called on the Senate’s leadership to allow the Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, resume her legislative functions today following the expiration of her six-month suspension from the red chamber.

The lawyers argued that failure to allow Akpoti-Uduaghan resume is akin to indirectly extending the suspension placed on her beyond six months, without a valid resolution of the Senate to that effect.

The lawyers bared their minds while reacting to a letter reportedly issued by the Senate through the Acting Clerk to the National Assembly, Yahaya Danzaria, wherein Senator Natasha AkpotiUduaghan was told that her suspension is still subsisting.

Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan had earlier written the Senate about her planned return to the red chamber upon the expiration of the six-month suspension slammed on her.

However, In a letter dated 4th September, 2025, the embattled Senator was told that her suspension remains, subject to judicial proceedings and that she cannot return until the process is concluded or the Senate reviews the matter.

The letter signed by Danzaria reads: “I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter notifying this office of your intention to resume sitting and other legislative duties in the Senate on the 4th of September, 2025, which you claim is the date of expiration of the six months suspension imposed on you by the Senate.

“I am further directed to inform you that your suspension was with effect from Thursday 6th March, 2025 and draw your attention to the fact that the subject matter of your suspension is presently before the Court of Appeal.

The matter therefore remains subjudice, and until the judicial process is concluded and the Senate formally reviews the suspension in the light of the court’s pronouncement, no administrative action can be taken by this office to facilitate your resumption. You will be duly notified of the Senate’s decision on the matter as soon as it is resolved”.

Akpoti-Uduaghan fumes

Dissatisfied with the Senate’s response, the Kogi Senator has threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against the Clerk of the National Assembly (CNA), Kamorudeen Ogunlana, if nothing is done to facilitate her return to the red chamber today. The threat was contained in a letter dated 10th September, 2025 and signed by Akpoti-Uduaghan’s lawyer, Michael Numa (SAN).

In the letter, the silk accused the CNA of disobeying a subsisting court judgement in violation of the law and the Code of Conduct for Public Officers.

“Take notice that failure to comply by Monday, 15th September 2025, will leave us with no alternative, but to initiate proceedings against you personally and in your official capacity, “The proposed legal steps could include contempt charges, disciplinary action, and holding the CNA responsible for instigating a breach of the peace. “We strongly advise that you reconsider your untenable stance and comply with the Constitution and extant judicial orders”, the silk wrote.

NLC threat

In the meantime, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has threatened to mobilize its members against the National Assembly if the Kogi Senator is not allowed to resume her legislative duties. In a statement, NLC President, Joe Ajaero, condemned the Senate’s action against AkpotiUduaghan, saying it endangers Nigeria’s democracy.

The statement reads: “We warn the leadership of the National Assembly and their enablers: the Nigerian people, united across ethnic and religious lines, will not stand idly by while you cannibalise our democracy.

The labour movement, as the historic defender of justice and the common good, will mobilise its immense membership and moral authority to resist this slide into autocracy. An attack on one senator today is an attack on the sovereignty of every Nigerian voter tomorrow.

“The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) rises in vehement condemnation of the Godswill Akpabioled Senate’s decision to continue barring Senator Natasha AkpotiUduaghan from performing her sacred constitutional duties. This act is not merely an error in judgement; it is a brazen, premeditated assault on democracy itself, a direct threat to the social contract, and a dangerous slide towards fascism masquerading as governance.

“That you suspended a fellow Senator from her constitutional roles depriving her people proper representation is not sinful enough, but you went ahead to ignore the rulings of the court that voided her suspension and at the expiration of your illegal suspension, you are still denying her a return is the height of impunity and morally reprehensible. This is no longer a democracy.

The punishment of Natasha is not hers alone. It is the disenfranchisement of a whole Kogi Central”

“The Senate’s pathetic recourse to a frivolous legal technicality, claiming the matter is subjudice, after the expiration of a patently illegal six-month suspension, is the height of legislative bad faith. “It is a cynical ploy that reveals a sinister agenda to silence dissent, crush opposition, and manipulate the judiciary as a tool of political persecution.

“This action, led by Senator Akpabio, constitutes a gross abuse of power that shames the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly and spits on the collective will of the people of Kogi Central who elected Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan. “From our standpoint, this action is a direct attack on the Nigerian people. It is a declaration by a privileged political elite that they are not accountable to the citizens they purport to serve”.

Lawyers speak

Beyond the NLC’s threat, a cross-section of senior lawyers have equally spoken with one voice on the need for the Senate to allow Senator Natasha AkpotiUduaghan resume her duties today at the Senate. Speaking on the issue, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Mike Ahamba, accused the Senate of rubbishing the efficacy and authority of the judiciary.

Ahamba said: “The legislator should be allowed to resume her duties since she has served out her suspension. It’s very unfortunate that in this era, everything is being done to rubbish the efficacy and authority of the judiciary.

“If the court actually made an order that she shouid be allowed to resume even before she served out her punishment, that order ought to have been obeyed. But now that her imprisonment has expired, she shouid not be put back in the prison yard.

“I don’t know whether the National Assembly has a legal adviser and whether there are lawyers in that place? I even understand that Akpabio is a lawyer. If this is so, then all I can say is that it is a pity.

The suspension period has lapsed, are they extending it?. “The cases in court can be determined in two years time, are they saying there should be no representation at the Senate for Akpoti-Uduaghan’s constituents? I don’t know what her lawyers are doing, there is a clear case of contempt of court here.

Someone ought to have gone to court to push for contempt against those disobeying court’s order”. Speaking in the same vein, another member of the inner Bar, Prof. Mike Ozekhome (SAN), argued that the narration of subjudice by the Senate is being stretched beyond its natural contours. “The ongoing drama in Nigeria concerning the Senate and Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan has once again spotlighted the uneasy intersection of law, politics and institutional power. “At its centre stands Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the outspoken lawmaker representing Kogi Central, whose suspension has since become more than an internal disciplinary matter.

Yes, it has become a test case for the limits of legislative authority, the sanctity of judicial process, and the huge price of dissent in a chamber often accused of jealously guarding its own with unflinching zeal. How come it now strips one of its own naked in the public domain? What are the issues? “What began in March as a disciplinary sanction for alleged insubordination has now spiraled into a serious constitutional standoff.

Six months on, the lawmaker had expected to reclaim her seat with the effluxion of her suspension period only to be met with an official communication from the Acting Clerk of the National Assembly reminding her that her fate hangs not in the will of her suffering constituents, nor even in the resolutions of her colleagues, but in the hands of the appellate court to which both parties had submitted their grievances. “The letter effectively extends her political exile and underscores the Senate’s insistence that its authority remains unbent, even in the face of legal challenge and public outcry.

“However, beneath the procedural veneer lies a deeper contest: a narrative of alleged political victimization; a clash of huge egos at the highest level of the legislature; and a senator’s insistent claim that her punishment is nothing but a retaliation for daring to accuse the Senate President of misconduct.

“Natasha’s suspension is being challenged in court both in appeals and cross-appeals. This makes it subjudice. “Yet, like every principle of law, subjudice can be and appears in the Natasha case to have been stretched beyond its natural contours. And when that happens, it morphs from a shield of justice into a sword of suppression.

“This is what looms large in the case of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. The Senate insists that because her case is pending at the Court of Appeal, she must remain suspended until judgement is delivered, notwithstanding that even its own suspension time of six months has expired. In other words, the pendency of her suit is not treated as a shield and reason for restraint on their part, but as a weapon and justification to extend her punishment.

“At the very heart of this controversy lies not simply the fate of one senator, but the voice of an entire constituency, Kogi Central (one-third of Kogi State). Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan was not self-appointed to the Red Chamber; she was chosen and voted for by the people of Kogi Central through the instrumentality of the ballot, the most sacred covenant between citizen and state in a democracy.

“But herein lies the paradox: the Senate insists that the matter is subjudice, that until the Court of Appeal rules, Natasha must remain in political limbo. But what of the people whose collective will she embodies? Does litigation strip them of their right to be represented in the national discourse? Can the judicial pendency of one woman’s grievance become the silencing of hundreds of thousands of constituents?

If democracy is truly government of the people, by the people, and for the people, (as Abraham Lincoln: once enthused at his Gettysburg speech on November 18, 1863), then the punishment of Natasha is not hers alone. It is the disenfranchisement of a whole Kogi Central, the people who invested their hope in her.

Nowhere does the Constitution contemplate indefinite suspension as a legitimate means of punishing an erring legislator

“Senator Natasha is nothing but a vessel, a custodian and a courier of their collective voice and will. Her exclusion from plenary sessions, committees, motions and votes translates to the silencing of that constituency in every matter of her State and national importance. “Nowhere does the Constitution contemplate indefinite suspension as a legitimate means of punishing an erring legislator.

That amounts to complete removal from her seat”, Ozekhome said. In a statement titled; “Allow Senator Natasha to resume”, a rights activist, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), argued that the Senate is overreaching itself with its position.

He said: “I have read the letter from the Acting Clerk of the Senate on the above subject-matter, wherein it was stated that Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan cannot resume in the Senate until her case in court is finally determined. I think the Senate is overreaching itself with this position. “First, the suspension of the Senator was for six months certain, being limited by time. Once the six months expire, she should be allowed to resume in the Senate automatically.

Failure to allow her to resume is indirectly extending the suspension beyond six months, without a valid resolution of the Senate to that effect. There is no such resolution at the moment.

The case pending in court cannot be the reason to extend her suspension, illegally. “Second, the court case being referred to relates to the six months suspension, as to its validity and constitutionality.

The appeal flowing from that case is also limited in scope to the six months suspension. Anything to the contrary will portray the Senate as being vindictive and petty. “Third, the point was made by the trial court that the period of suspension should not exceed the usual sitting days of the Senate for a session. To refuse her resumption after the six months period will be to make the suspension indefinite.

“Since this matter relates to the rights and privileges of a whole constituency comprising millions of voters, the Senate should do the needful by allowing Senator Natasha to resume forthwith. “She has already served the six months in full and any determination by the court can only relate to the validity of the suspension and her entitlements, but certainly, the sessions of the Senate that she missed due to her suspension, cannot be reversed forever.

In essence, the purpose of the suspension having been fulfilled, no useful purpose will be served to deny her from resuming duties as a Senator”. In his comments, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Hakeem Afolabi, said it is wrong for the Senate to insist that Natasha’s suspension remains after serving out the six months period. “The six months suspension having lapsed, it is only fair to allow her resume her duties as a senator.

“Her complaint which she took to court have been decided by the Federal High Court. The complaint of the senate that it has gone on appeal to challenge the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court to entertain Natasha’s case should not stop her resumption except the Senate applies for injunction pending appeal against her, which is not the case here. “By and large, the appeal filed by the senate should not stop her from returning to the senate”, Afolabi said.

On his part, a rights activist, Inibehe Effiong, argued that the Senate’s decision to prevent Natasha from resuming owing to pending court cases defies logic. Effiong said: “Even on the basis of the Senate’s resolution, Senator Natasha had the option of apologizing to the Senate and retract the comments that she had made on her encounter with Akpabio, but she chose to go to court to contest her suspension.

She had equally pre-emptively challenged the processes which crystallized into her suspension. “So, if the Senate, in its wisdom felt that it is even possible to recall her without having to serve out a six month suspension by giving her a condition which she elected not to satisfy, what is now the basis in law, morality and commonsense for anyone to say that due to a subsisting case, it will be impossible to recall her even when she has served out the suspension period?.

“I found the Senate’s letter embarrassing, scandalous, contentious and very disparaging of the sensibilities of the Nigerian people. If you go by the diabolical logic of the Senate, it means if the Court of Appeal gives a verdict tommorow and either party chose to further appeal to the Supreme Court and the apex court now fix the hearing of the appeal for 2027, is Akpabio telling Nigerians that Akpoti-Uduaghan will not resume her legislative functions until 2027?. I found this very preposterous”.