My March 13, 2025 column titled, “Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension: The joke is on Akpabio, Senate,” elicited diverse comments. I would have been surprised if it didn’t. The roforofo between Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan is no longer just a case of “two fighting” but a national debacle that has exposed Nigeria to international ridicule. Two of the comments were particularly instructive.
First, a female colleague who obviously has sympathy for the Senate President, asked rhetorically: “How is the joke on Akpabio? What are the facts on ground to warrant your conclusion? If you believed that Akpabio would promise Natasha ‘quality time’ in his house in any part of Akwa Ibom State, then you could believe anything.”
The second comment came from a serving Senator, who, I am not at liberty to disclose his name but who I know is not a fan of Akpabio. Suffice it to say that he is one of the few federal lawmakers that I respect.
He wrote: “Ike, I know that Akpabio is on the crosshairs of everyone given the damning performance of the Tinubu government and the obvious missteps of the Senate President in handling this matter. However, she (Natasha) is not an innocent in this matter and has been manipulating public opinion. Some of us who are well aware of other issues not in the public domain regarding them (who were family friends and enjoyed fraternities) are understandably reluctant to engage in pillorying Akpabio. There is much more to all this.”
I agree that only Akpabio and Natasha, and not even their spouses, know the full story, but I have no doubt that Akpabio made sexual advances at Natasha and she has incontrovertible evidence against him, which explains why the Senate President has made every effort to forestall a transparent investigation as demanded by well-meaning Nigerians. The most effective way to shut Natasha up is to allow for an open investigation but that will be too much of a risk for Akpabio to take. Unfortunately for him, resorting to the rather puerile theatrics of kissing his wife publicly at the drop of a hat, good optics as the gesture may be, cannot be a proof of innocence.
While such public show of affection may, indeed, be an indication that Akpabio loves his wife, Unoma, to bits, it cannot be a proof that he didn’t make passes at Natasha. Moreover, nothing says that men who have affairs with other women, single or married, love their wives less and Nigerians are not interested in knowing how crazily in love he is with his delectable wife.
What those defending Akpabio seem not to realise is the fact that the issue at stake is not whether Akpabio made passes at Natasha, a woman of extravagant beauty. After all, as former Minister of Works, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, recently said, her beauty poses a problem for her in politics because men will find it difficult to ignore her presence. Perhaps, Akpabio is one of those men to whom, according to Senator Ogunlewe, Natasha’s beauty has become a problem; men to who “it is a natural thing to look at beautiful women” and who are not expected to close their eyes when a beautiful woman is passing.
So, there is nothing wrong if Akpabio appreciates Natasha’s stunning beauty even though it will be morally wrong if the appreciation goes beyond the bounds of decency, more so when the woman in question is the wife of his bosom friend. But it becomes a national scandal, in fact a crime, if the Senate President decides to demean and persecute her because his amorous advances were rebuffed which is exactly the allegation Natasha is making.
So, those who say that she is guilty of breaking Senate rules and deserves to be punished miss the point. Senator Natasha’s position is that her being called a club girl at plenary, relocation of her seat, though a prerogative of the Senate President, and removal as chairperson of the Local Content committee are all acts of victimisation which would not have happened if she acceded to Akpabio’s request to “make him happy.” And her open rebellion, which Akpabio now used to suspend her for six months and withdraw all her privileges as a senator, is her own way of protesting against the perceived injustice.
Whenever I reflect on the Akpabio-Natasha debacle, what comes to my mind is the allegory of the tortoise that willfully refused entreaties from concerned friends who desperately tried to dissuade him from a disaster prone journey. Asked when he would return, his “not until I am disgraced” retort was both instructive and foreboding. His friends, aghast, must have wondered what would spur him on such nihilistic mission.
Akpabio seems to have embarked on that tortoise-like journey from which he is unprepared to turn back until he is thoroughly disgraced. The sad thing is that he seems poised to throw mud not only at the Senate but the country in the process. Warriors, as the saying goes, pick their battles, a concept, which is a core principle in Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” which emphasizes the importance of knowing when to fight and when not to.
The former governor of Akwa Ibom State should have known that this battle with Natasha is needless. If he was a man given to choosing his battles wisely, he should have known that Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan is the wrong person to pick a fight with because she is a ruthless fighter herself. Unlike Akpabio who was propelled to the Senate by the criminal Nigerian system even when he didn’t contest the primaries, Natasha conversely battled the system to a standstill to be at the Senate. She fought and overwhelmed a vicious ruling party and brutal political actors in Kogi State who don’t take prisoners and came out triumphant.
The fact that she is representing her senatorial district of birth – Kogi Central – rather than Delta State where she is married, on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the first elected female senator in Kogi State, should have told Akpabio something about the woman. Her parting “this injustice will not be sustained,” shot before she was escorted out of the Senate chambers on the day she was suspended for six months should have told Akpabio that he was dealing with a determined woman.
The fact that unlike her male colleagues – Femi Okurounmu (1999), Joseph Waku (2000), Arthur Nzeribe (2002), Isah Mohammed (2004), Ali Ndume (2017), Ovie Omo-Agege (2018) and Abdul Ningi (2024) – who went home sulking after their suspension, Natasha was not only defiant but escalated the matter internationally by presenting her case at a UN forum, speaking at the Women in Parliament session during the recently concluded Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting at the United Nations in New York should have told Akpabio to tread carefully. Rather than being eclipsed, Natasha has become an international celebrity, granting interviews to the likes of BBC and Sky News, while her traducers have become international pariahs.
I dare say that Natasha will win this battle even in the very unlikely event that she is recalled from the Senate. From what happened on Tuesday when she went home, it was clear her constituents love her. She connects with them in a way that 99.9 per cent of Nigerian politicians can’t. That is a huge political capital, which not even Akpabio can boast of. He will be the ultimate loser.
The first law of holes is an adage which says: “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Simply put, it is a metaphor which warns that when in an untenable position, it is best to stop making the situation worse.
Right now, Akpabio is in an untenable position in his tango with Natasha. The wise thing to do is to pull back and deescalate. But blinded by hubris and a warped sense of invincibility, he is not. Instead, he continues to dig, plotting for her recall from the Senate.
In his 1961 book, The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Julius Esslin, a Hungarian-born British journalist and professor of drama, lamented what he called absurdism – the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose. Esslin couldn’t have had the 10th Nigerian Senate in mind when he wrote his famed book 63 years ago. But nothing captures the state of affairs in the Akpabio-led red chamber of the National Assembly more profoundly than Esslin’s “theatre of the absurd.”
That the 10th Senate has become a theatre of the absurd is an understatement. What is worse, the situation is getting more bizarre by the day, a situation which the theatre critic further labelled “the absurdity of the absurd,” with impunity walking on all fours. Truth be told, Akpabio has done enough damage to the Nigerian brand. It is high time he and his minions stopped.
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