The President of Nigeria’s Senate, Godswill Akpabio, on Monday, at the Federal High Court in Abuja, denied the involvement of Chief Olisa Agbakoba and Monday Ubani, both SAN, in the defence of an alleged unlawful suspension suit filed by Kogi State Senator, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
Lawyers representing the Senate and Akpabio, who are the 2nd and 3rd respondents, respectively, told Justice Binta Nyako that the two senior lawyers being accused of disobeying the orders of the court are not members of Akpabio’s legal team.
Akpoti-Uduaghan had dragged the Clerk of the Senate, the Senate, President of the Senate and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics to court over her suspension on March 5. 2025.
At the resumed hearing of the matter on April 4, Justice Nyako had made an order restraining Akpabio, Akpoti-Uduaghan, as well as their respective lawyers from speaking with the media on the substantive issue and fixed May 12 for the hearing of all pending applications.
However, before the adjourned date, the plaintiff wrote a satirical apology letter to the Senate President, over her suspension from the Senate, based on her alleged refusal to succumb to sexual overtures from the Senate President.
The said letter, which was published on her Facebook page on April 27, has since gone viral on social media.
Reacting, the Senate and Akpabio, both respondents, on May 5, brought their respective applications seeking an order of court, directing the suspended senator to delete the viral satirical letter from her Facebook page and also tender an apology to the court for violating the order barring her from speaking with the media.
When the matter came up on Monday, parties in the suit informed the court that they had all filed their schedules of documents and were ready to proceed with the case.
However, Paul Daudu and Eko Ejembi Eko, SANS, brought to the court’s attention an affidavit of non-compliance, wherein they accused Akpoti-Uduaghan of disobeying the orders of the court which barred her from speaking to the media.
They claimed that the alleged act of contempt was contained in the satirical letter, which went viral on social media and mainstream media.
According to Daudu, the satirical apology was not just a mockery of the Senate and colleagues of the plaintiff but dwelt more on the substance of the case before the court.
Both Daudu and Eko told the court that the plaintiff raised a fresh issue they would want to respond to, explaining that Agbakoba and Ubani were never part of the respondent’s legal team.
Responding, Akpoti-Uduaghan’s lawyers maintained that the said satirical letter had nothing to do with the proceedings before Justice Nyako, but rather a case of sexual harassment before another court.
Besides, lead counsel to the plaintiff, Mr Jibrin Okutepa, SAN, who also accused the respondents of disobeying the orders of the court, informed Justice Nyako of a contempt proceeding initiated against the respondents and urged the court to take their application first.
In a short ruling, the trial judge, who observed that the issue of contempt is crucial to the proceedings, fixed May 13 for the hearing of all applications and the substantive suit.
Akpoti-Uduaghan had, in a counter affidavit filed on May 8, submitted that it was Akpabio who, through his legal representatives (Chief Olisa Agbakoba and Monday Ubani, violated the orders of the court.
In defending the satirical letter, the plaintiff argued that, whereas the issue before the court centred on her alleged unlawful suspension, her letter addressed to Akpabio and not the court was on her alleged sexual harassment by the Senate President.
The suspended senator representing Kogi Central at the National Assembly, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has maintained that her recent satirical letter to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, was never in breach of a court order barring parties before the court from speaking with the media.
Akpoti-Uduaghan, who made the clarification in a counter affidavit filed in opposition to a motion on notice by Akpabio, pointed out that while the content of her viral letter centred around her sexual harassment allegations against the Senate President, what is before the court is her alleged unlawful suspension from the Senate.
The Kogi State senator had approached the court to restrain the Senate from taking any disciplinary actions against her pending the hearing of a suit against the leadership of the upper chamber.
Responding, Justice Emeka Nwite granted the request on March 4, and summoned the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, amongst others, to appear before the court in respect of the matter.
However, the Senate went ahead to suspend Akpoti-Uduaghan for six months, the following day, March 5.
Following an accusation of bias by Akpabio, Justice Nwite had recused himself from hearing the matter, which was then assigned to Justice Binta Nyako.
In the 28-paragraph affidavit, the plaintiff claimed that the motion on notice was a strategy by Akpabio “to ambush me and foist an adjournment on the Court’s scheduled proceedings of May 12, 2025”;;.
Adding that these actions form part of a series of calculated moves by the 3rd defendant to frustrate the judicial process and ensure that “I do not return to the Senate, thereby completing the term of my unlawful suspension without judicial resolution”;;.
Akpoti-Uduaghan further claimed that Akpabio, by his alleged continued disobedience of court orders, while simultaneously seeking to invoke the Court’s contempt jurisdiction against her, is bringing the institution of the court to odium, and undermining public confidence in the administration of justice.
“That the 3rd Defendant’s application is not only malicious but if granted, would amount to rewarding contempt, encouraging procedural ambushes, and punishing my constituents by prolonging the void in representation at the Senate”;;, she added.
The Kogi senator accordingly urged the court to reject the application for being incompetent since it was aimed at gagging her right to freedom of expression and frustrating the hearing of her suit before the court.
